as in inexpressible
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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
These days the words become real only for the speaker—the air whispers to me—the listener is stealing away,
back to its dark habitat, where all is
unsayable.
—Jorie Graham, The New York Review of Books, 31 July 2025
Hordes of us are out there hoping to say the unsayable.
—Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 28 Mar. 2025
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
These days the words become real only for the speaker—the air whispers to me—the listener is stealing away,
back to its dark habitat, where all is
unsayable.
—Jorie Graham, The New York Review of Books, 31 July 2025
Hordes of us are out there hoping to say the unsayable.
—Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 28 Mar. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unsayable
- inexpressible
- indefinable
- indescribable
- unknowable
- inexplicable
- incomprehensible
- unaccountable
- unfathomable
Adjective
-
If everything is systematically interlinked, then life’s transcendent beauty is inextricable from its inexpressible horrors and outright silliness, like the jarring swings between slapstick and tragedy in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.—
Jack Denton,
Vulture,
6 Oct. 2025
-
Instead, there were chuckles to hold back anger and carefully chosen words to express what felt inexpressible.—
Tim Britton,
New York Times,
29 Sep. 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
-
To celebrate that person is an indescribable feeling.—
Ilana Kaplan,
PEOPLE,
12 June 2026
-
For David and Tara Heidenreich, the moment their son Eli became a Steeler was nearly indescribable.—
Ross Guidotti,
CBS News,
27 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The sky was that deep, unknowable blue of late autumn.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
11 June 2026
-
In so many of his films, Spielberg tries to control and redefine something that is, on some level, unknowable and petrifying.—
Abid Rahman,
HollywoodReporter,
10 June 2026
Adjective
-
There are definitely laughs in Maddie’s Secret, but the point of the movie is almost to get beyond them, to the place where naive hokum could yield moments of inexplicable resonance.—
Alison Willmore,
Vulture,
19 June 2026
-
But the files reveal new details about some recent sightings, along with the government’s efforts to explain what many find inexplicable.—
Collin Binkley,
Fortune,
15 June 2026
Adjective
-
That principle has crumbled so far in the face of Wembanyama’s combination of incomprehensible on-court abilities, youthful enthusiasm and cosmopolitan-unto-eccentric savoir faire.—
Leah Asmelash,
CNN Money,
9 June 2026
-
The comparison, though not quite apples-to-apples, demonstrates the almost incomprehensible scale of the World Cup.—
Henry Bushnell,
New York Times,
8 June 2026
Adjective
-
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
-
The enduring, if still somewhat unaccountable popularity of immersive experiences in the city (the Color Factory!—
Ian Volner,
Curbed,
4 June 2026
Adjective
-
But what feels most haunting about the arc of then to now, about Smith’s unfathomable issues and woes — yet obvious heart and particularly evident quest to find himself in recent years — is that his words then were spoken with a sense of arrival and past tense.—
Kansas City Star,
Kansas City Star,
20 June 2026
-
The lack of a competitive instinct from any of the cable carriers is unfathomable, very similar to Smith Corona Marchant, which filed for reorganization in 1995.—
Jim Cramer,
CNBC,
14 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Unsayable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unsayable. Accessed 22 Jun. 2026.
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