ineffableness

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in·ef·fa·ble

(ĭn-ĕf′ə-bəl)

adj.

1. Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable: ineffable joy.

2. Not to be uttered; taboo: the ineffable name of God.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin ineffābilis : in-, not; see in-¹ + effābilis, utterable (from effārī, to utter : ex-, ex- + fārī, to speak; see bhā- in Indo-European roots).]

in·ef′fa·bil′i·ty, in·ef′fa·ble·ness n.

in·ef′fa·bly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in periodicals archive ?

It was only after becoming a parent that I began to grasp the ineffableness of God's sacrifice in that great act of passion.

A red letter campus: what do the words and witness of Jesus demand of a college that calls itself Christian?

Language thus constitutes the "living person's braille," a seemingly solid mode of relating (to) the foamy ineffableness that lies within us and without, a way at least of emblematically figuring being without ever quite figuring it out.