unsayable

Definition of unsayablenext

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of unsayable All the secrets pour out, the revelations of infidelity and addiction and so on, as the group gives vent to the stuff that’s previously been unsayable—not to fix anything, mind you, since some things can’t be fixed. Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2026 What the novel is working toward is not the exposure of a violation, let alone the processing of any real-life event, but a recognition of the self—a self who survives the scourges of childhood, and a storytelling-self who learns that fiction can reveal otherwise unsayable truths. Honor Jones, The Atlantic, 3 Mar. 2026 But Woolf’s broad, sweeping pronouncements about what literature is and isn’t capable of were always meant sarcastically; her life’s work, after all, was to push the boundaries of literature so as to say the unsayable. Literary Hub, 9 Dec. 2025 All fair, but an uncomfortable couch and a passion for the art of the unsayable are not reasons enough to kill oneself. Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 29 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unsayable
Adjective
  • The universe of the film, as all of Nolan’s worlds are, is one drawn from the muted colors of reluctant determination and it’s structured by a gravity of inexpressible guilt.
    Sarah Shachat, IndieWire, 17 July 2026
  • Much like the famed British poets of World War I, who sought to express the inexpressible, Abu Toha strives to capture the unspeakable carnage, futility, and despair of war.
    Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, 19 Aug. 2025
Adjective
  • Our movie tastes are determined by some indefinable electrical current of enthusiasm or joy or deep, radiating sadness, or some combination of the three.
    Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Of course, beauty is subject to taste and culture and all sorts of indefinable things.
    Television Critic, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2026
Adjective
  • The brain-squeezing rush of those starts is nearly indescribable.
    Lawrence Ulrich, Robb Report, 15 July 2026
  • Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin’s totally indescribable HBO series was both a grand evolution of the Tim Robinson experience and a wildly original contribution to what television could be and feel like.
    Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 8 July 2026
Adjective
  • Messi spent two decades becoming famous while remaining almost unknowable.
    Jerry Brewer, New York Times, 20 July 2026
  • Ginsburg misjudged an unknowable future; Biden failed to respond to a visible present.
    Michael Sonnenfeldt, Fortune, 19 July 2026
Adjective
  • Fans rightfully mocked the dancing cars mounted on robot arms that played during an inexplicable diversion on Universal Studios Hollywood’s Studio Tour.
    Robert Niles, Oc Register, 21 July 2026
  • They were shocked by their inexplicable sloppiness, by a flop that not a single one of them could answer for.
    Henry Bushnell, New York Times, 7 July 2026
Adjective
  • But when asked to convey human-woman concerns, like a shitty dad, a shitty husband, and a shitty mother-in-law, that intense gaze can become inscrutable, even incomprehensible — a closed door to her interiority instead of a way in.
    Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 15 July 2026
  • There have been times when acts of atrocity have been going on — and gosh, some of those things are incomprehensible — yet humanity has found a way.
    Ryan Gajewski, HollywoodReporter, 27 June 2026
Adjective
  • But critics say the bodies have become unelected, unaccountable usurpers of presidential and judicial power.
    Laurent Belsie, Christian Science Monitor, 29 June 2026
  • An unaccountable concentration of political and private power is increasingly reshaping how America’s federal government operates, bending its political, legal, and economic systems away from the public good and toward private interests.
    Lucy Lang, Time, 10 June 2026
Adjective
  • When Mina’s closest friend Lucy succumbs to his thrall, the enigmatic Professor Van Helsing is summoned to wage war on this unfathomable threat.
    Andreas Wiseman, Deadline, 22 July 2026
  • How does personal responsibility enter into this world of unfathomable dangers?
    Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 17 July 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Unsayable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unsayable. Accessed 28 Jul. 2026.

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