Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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adj
Incapable of being cleared of clouds.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: formal, literary, rare
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
adj
Inexplicable, mysterious, unclear.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: figuratively, formal, literary, rare
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: abstruse, Chinese, dense, enigmatic, fathomless, Greek, inapprehensible, incognizable, incomprehensible, ineffable, inenubilable, inexplicable, impenetrable, insensible, inscrutable, insoluble, insolvable, mysterious, nonunderstandable, obscure, retruse, tenebrose, thick, undecipherable, undiscoverable, unexplainable, unfathomable, ungraspable, unintelligible, unknowable, ununderstandable, arcane, cryptic, ill-defined, mysterial, mysterioso, mystic, runish, sibylline, systerious, uncertain, undefined, undetermined, cloudish, cloudlike, cloudly, cloudy, foggy, foglike, fumid, hazed, hazy, infumated, mistlike, misty, nebulose, nebulous, roky, smokelike, smoky, turbid, vaporous
Antonyms: none provided
History
From English in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + Latin ēnūbilāre (“to clear of clouds or mist; (figurative) to clear of obscurity”) + English -able (suffix meaning ‘able to be done’ forming adjectives), possibly coined by the English critic and essayist Max Beerbohm (1872–1956): see the 1903 and 1911 quotations below. By surface analysis, in- + e- + Latin nubil- + -able. Ēnūbilāre is derived from ē- (a variant of ex- (prefix denoting privation)) + nūbilus (“cloudy, overcast; (figurative) beclouded, confused, troubled”) (from nūbēs (“cloud; (figurative) concealment, obscurity”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)newdh- (“to cover”)) + -āre.
