UNSAYABLE Synonyms: 52 Similar and Opposite Words

unsayable

adjective

Definition of unsayable

as in inexpressible

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Example Sentences

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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

Recent Examples of Synonyms for unsayable

Adjective

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
Writing gives mothers the space and the time to express the inexpressible, even when the space and time do so are stolen away.

— Alice Vincent, Vogue, 7 Aug. 2025

Definition of inexpressible

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

Definition of indefinable

Adjective

The results have often left me highly frustrated, but also have given me indescribable joy at the fact of having absorbed (although only partially, of course) some of the elusive beauty of those marvelous, magical, mysteriously alluring tongues.

— Douglas Hofstadter, Time, 30 June 2026
There has been an indescribable joy sweeping New York City as of late, thanks to an unprecedented week of athletic endeavors.

— Alexandra Hildreth, Vogue, 18 June 2026

Definition of indescribable

Adjective

The words in the Declaration of Independence, 1,320 in all, have shaped modern society, inspiring well more than 100 similar declarations around the world since 1776 and transforming an unknowable number of lives.

— Lonnie G. Bunch III, The Atlantic, 4 July 2026
How England will actually perform in a penalty shoot-out is still ultimately unknowable.

— Jack Pitt-Brooke, New York Times, 30 June 2026

Definition of unknowable

Adjective

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
And those benefits, the story goes, are endangered by an inexplicable quirk in the law that applies Social Security payroll taxes to only the first $184,500 in annual wages (a figure that rises annually with wage inflation).

— Jessica Riedl, The Atlantic, 6 July 2026

Definition of inexplicable

Adjective

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
Being joyful there — in the Dominican Republic, where small shacks and houses pieced together by junkyard scraps sometimes hold families with over a dozen members — seems incomprehensible.

— Daniel Flick, AJC.com, 25 June 2026

Definition of incomprehensible

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

Definition of unaccountable

Browse Nearby Words

unsay

unsayable

unsaying

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“Unsayable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unsayable. Accessed 13 Jul. 2026.

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Synonyms of unsayable

adjective

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