incommensurable

adjective

in·​com·​men·​su·​ra·​ble ˌin-kə-ˈmen(t)-s(ə-)rə-bəl How to pronounce incommensurable (audio)
-ˈmen(t)-sh(ə-)rə-
: not commensurable
broadly : lacking a basis of comparison in respect to a quality normally subject to comparison
incommensurability noun
incommensurable noun
incommensurably
ˌin-kə-ˈmen(t)-s(ə-)rə-blē How to pronounce incommensurable (audio)
-ˈmen(t)-sh(ə-)rə-
adverb

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Commensurable means "having a common measure" or "corresponding in size, extent, amount, or degree." Its antonym incommensurable generally refers to things that are unlike and incompatible, sharing no common ground ("incommensurable theories"), or to things that are very disproportionate, often to the point of defying comparison ("incommensurable crimes"). Both words entered English in the 1500s and were originally used (as they still can be) for numbers that have or don't have a common divisor. They came to English by way of Middle French and Late Latin, ultimately deriving from the Latin noun mensura, meaning "measure." Mensura is also an ancestor of commensurate (meaning "coextensive" or "proportionate") and incommensurate ("disproportionate" or "insufficient"), which overlap in meaning with commensurable and incommensurable but are not exact synonyms.

Examples of incommensurable in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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The transcendental is, for Schrader, expressible only through contradiction: neither the implausible redemption at the end of First Reformed nor the relentlessly pessimistic two hours preceding it but the very juxtaposition of these incommensurable ontological frames. Roy Scranton august 20, Literary Hub, 20 Aug. 2025 But the painterly resources available to Raphael were vastly larger than those available to an artist a scant half century before, as the musical and lyrical resources available to a pop musician in 1970 were incommensurable with those available to a pop musician in 1960. Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 28 July 2025 After 15 months of fighting, the IDF’s losses are incommensurable with Hamas’s. Hussein Ibish, The Atlantic, 19 Jan. 2025 In Sewing Machine, 2000, the mechanism’s operator—this time male—seems not to be sewing at all, but conducting some kind of shamanistic ritual that sends the other figures populating the painting’s hallucinatory space into their own incommensurable realms of reverie. Barry Schwabsky, Artforum, 1 Jan. 2025 Over and over, videos emerged, revealing how often police narratives were incommensurable with what actually happened. Brooke Jarvis, New York Times, 8 Mar. 2023 If human values are incommensurable and sometimes flat-out incompatible, that means no single political arrangement can satisfy all legitimate human values simultaneously. Sigal Samuel, Vox, 7 Dec. 2018

Word History

First Known Use

1570, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of incommensurable was in 1570

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Cite this Entry

“Incommensurable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incommensurable. Accessed 8 Sep. 2025.

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