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
Transit sources told The News that footage on the cards is stored in a proprietary format, and should be unreadable without the MTA’s own software.
—
Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 1 May 2025
Eventually, the register ended up in the collections of the Cambridge University Library, and in 2019, researchers discovered an unreadable handwritten fragment hidden inside its binding, which triggered a yearslong restoration project.
—Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Apr. 2025
Fuzzy, unreadable text is now (largely) a thing of the past.
—Barry Collins, Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2025
Your data is also encrypted, meaning it’s scrambled into an unreadable format to prevent unauthorized access.
—Ryley Amond, CNBC, 27 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for unreadable
Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 1 May 2025
Eventually, the register ended up in the collections of the Cambridge University Library, and in 2019, researchers discovered an unreadable handwritten fragment hidden inside its binding, which triggered a yearslong restoration project.
—Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Apr. 2025
Fuzzy, unreadable text is now (largely) a thing of the past.
—Barry Collins, Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2025
Your data is also encrypted, meaning it’s scrambled into an unreadable format to prevent unauthorized access.
—Ryley Amond, CNBC, 27 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for unreadable
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unreadable
illegible
Adjective
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In other words, the historical record seems as illegible as my own prehistoric handwriting.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
12 June 2025
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But for anyone who has ever returned from a conference with a collection of illegible notes and unusable photos, the promise is clear: better technology can preserve more value with significantly less effort.—
Roger Dooley,
Forbes.com,
10 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unreadable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unreadable. Accessed 1 Jul. 2025.
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