ineffable
adjective
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Breaking Down the Roots of Ineffable
"Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness," wrote Frederick Douglass in his autobiography. Reading Douglass's words, it's clear that ineffable means "indescribable" or "unspeakable." And when we break the word down to its Latin roots, we see how those meanings came about. Ineffable comes from ineffābilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning "not," with the adjective effābilis, meaning "capable of being expressed." Effābilis comes from effārī, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex- and fārī, meaning “to speak.”
Examples of ineffable in a Sentence
Rachel Bernhard, jsonline.com, 22 Oct. 2025
What else is there to say in the face of the ineffable?
—Literary Hub, 14 Oct. 2025
In fact, the tranquility of the rocking waves, or maybe the transient, ineffable quality of the water, seems to have lodged in Christian’s brain.
—Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 7 Oct. 2025
That ineffable charge continued to feel palpable as the lights went down and a thunderous roar went up.
—Sophie Williams, Billboard, 19 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ineffable
Cite this Entry
“Ineffable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ineffable. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.
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ineffable
adjective
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