as in illegible
incapable of being read or deciphered
the old book contains an inscription, but the handwriting is cramped and unreadable
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Recent Examples of unreadable
Some pages that are currently public are entirely unreadable.
—
William Vaillancourt, Rolling Stone, 21 Dec. 2025
There’s a local doctor, Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), who has slipped into alcoholic despair since his wife left him, and Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), a best-selling author and self-professed recovering liberal, whose rightward drift has led him to write an unreadable book about Wicks’s life.
—Justin Chang, New Yorker, 11 Dec. 2025
Sedulous stared at him for a long moment, unreadable, then suddenly gave another loud, cawing laugh.
—Jeff Spry, Space.com, 10 Dec. 2025
For instance, some denials could stem from easily correctable errors if the parents knew of those errors, such as unreadable dental scans or wording from the orthodontist's office that didn't fully explain the medical necessity.
—Beth Warren, Nashville Tennessean, 8 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for unreadable
William Vaillancourt, Rolling Stone, 21 Dec. 2025
There’s a local doctor, Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), who has slipped into alcoholic despair since his wife left him, and Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), a best-selling author and self-professed recovering liberal, whose rightward drift has led him to write an unreadable book about Wicks’s life.
—Justin Chang, New Yorker, 11 Dec. 2025
Sedulous stared at him for a long moment, unreadable, then suddenly gave another loud, cawing laugh.
—Jeff Spry, Space.com, 10 Dec. 2025
For instance, some denials could stem from easily correctable errors if the parents knew of those errors, such as unreadable dental scans or wording from the orthodontist's office that didn't fully explain the medical necessity.
—Beth Warren, Nashville Tennessean, 8 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for unreadable
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unreadable
illegible
Adjective
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Managers flagged signs as being worn and illegible.—
Madison Dapcevich,
Outside,
11 Mar. 2026
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But a prelinguistic intuition also simmers, for example, in a set of illegible, calligraphic drawings that suggest something just preceding the nascence of writing.—
Brian Seibert,
New Yorker,
6 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Unreadable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unreadable. Accessed 19 Mar. 2026.
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