as in mysterious
impossible to understand
advanced scientific theories of ungraspable complexity for the layperson
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Recent Examples of ungraspable
Its scope is gargantuan and ungraspable, and as such, the appropriate level of grief does not seem human in scale.
—
Literary Hub, 21 July 2025
Paul’s attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire.
—Vlada Gelman, TVLine, 27 Jan. 2025
One gazes into the geographical expanse of this place to try to grasp the ungraspable scale of things.
—Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s Magazine , 5 Jan. 2023
It’s a megagenre, something the poet-philosopher Timothy Morton might call a hyperobject, ungraspable in its ubiquity and scale.
—Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 13 Dec. 2022
The scope of something inexpressible, a mammoth, ungraspable intimation, had overtaken him.
—Greg Jackson, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
The ecological relationships that Darwin brings to our attention tell us of a world of bonds much more complex and ungraspable than had ever previously been supposed.
—Longreads, 23 Mar. 2021
The Internet of Things is an ungraspable future, particularly when the fact of a future for Earth at all sometimes sounds implausible.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 14 May 2020
Eraserhead was so ungraspable, so far into left field, that most critics dismissed it at the time.
—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
Literary Hub, 21 July 2025
Paul’s attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire.
—Vlada Gelman, TVLine, 27 Jan. 2025
One gazes into the geographical expanse of this place to try to grasp the ungraspable scale of things.
—Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s Magazine , 5 Jan. 2023
It’s a megagenre, something the poet-philosopher Timothy Morton might call a hyperobject, ungraspable in its ubiquity and scale.
—Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 13 Dec. 2022
The scope of something inexpressible, a mammoth, ungraspable intimation, had overtaken him.
—Greg Jackson, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
The ecological relationships that Darwin brings to our attention tell us of a world of bonds much more complex and ungraspable than had ever previously been supposed.
—Longreads, 23 Mar. 2021
The Internet of Things is an ungraspable future, particularly when the fact of a future for Earth at all sometimes sounds implausible.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 14 May 2020
Eraserhead was so ungraspable, so far into left field, that most critics dismissed it at the time.
—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ungraspable
Adjective
-
Gehman, then a graduate student earning a doctorate in disease ecology, had heard about a mysterious illness sweeping through the Pacific coast’s iconic invertebrates.—
JSTOR Daily,
JSTOR Daily,
17 Oct. 2025
-
Since its discovery in 2009, scientists have made little headway in understanding the mysterious origins of these excess gamma rays.—
Chris Young,
Interesting Engineering,
16 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
In the face of that, Keaton’s off- and sometimes on-duty style represented limitless possibilities, and a previously incomprehensible kind of freedom.—
Stephanie Zacharek,
Time,
12 Oct. 2025
-
And the thought of McDavid leaving Edmonton under any condition once felt incomprehensible.—
Eric Stephens,
New York Times,
1 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
That may sound unfathomable to any non-comic reader who watched Steven Yeun's Mark Grayson get bludgeoned, maimed, and nearly disemboweled (sorry, Atom Eve) in an episode-long, cities-spanning fight with Thragg's berzerker warrior, Conquest (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).—
Nick Romano,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Oct. 2025
-
Not after another season of beautiful dreams ended in the most painful, most unfathomable way possible, even by Phillies standards.—
Jayson Stark,
New York Times,
10 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Sigmund Freud defines the uncanny as the nagging presence of the familiar within the strange, the strange within the familiar.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
10 Oct. 2025
-
These are essentially gothic works, in which bleary, nocturnal isolation opens a door to bizarre impulses and uncanny transformations.—
Jessica Winter,
New Yorker,
8 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
But in an Akan language, the notion that an object could exist as a bare substrate, stripped of properties—say, the idea of a stone, with its weight, texture, and color subtracted—is basically unintelligible; the metaphysical split between a thing and its properties isn’t naturally expressible.—
Lula Konner,
The New York Review of Books,
4 Oct. 2025
-
However, audio quality can make or break social media content and while some people can tolerate less-than-perfect video, poor and unintelligible sound often has audiences swiping left.—
Mark Sparrow,
Forbes.com,
24 June 2025
Adjective
-
But there’s nothing impenetrable about that film.—
Zac Ntim,
Deadline,
8 Oct. 2025
-
The timepiece that helped cement Rolex as a maker of impenetrable tool watches is heading to auction this fall.—
Rachel Cormack,
Robb Report,
6 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
The basic logic of the drink is, as mentioned, Negroni-like, but more esoteric on a number of fronts.—
Jason O'Bryan,
Robb Report,
4 Oct. 2025
-
But this seems to me to be a far more likely possibility than Jesus making legendary journeys to India, Egypt, or even Britain, so popular in esoteric lore.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
30 Sep. 2025
Adjective
-
Specifically the perimenopausal timeframe can be very confusing both to a clinician and a patient in the sense that there are a lot of symptoms that are hard to navigate and understand.—
Helen Carefoot,
Flow Space,
15 Oct. 2025
-
The twice-a-year clock change can be a bit confusing, especially to Arizonans who don't observe the practice.—
Dina Kaur,
AZCentral.com,
14 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ungraspable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ungraspable. Accessed 18 Oct. 2025.
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