INCOMPREHENSIBLE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does incomprehensible mean? 

• INCOMPREHENSIBLE (adjective)
  The adjective INCOMPREHENSIBLE has 2 senses:

1. incapable of being explained or accounted for

2. difficult to understand

  Familiarity information: INCOMPREHENSIBLE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INCOMPREHENSIBLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Incapable of being explained or accounted for

Synonyms:

incomprehensible; inexplicable

Context example:

left the house at three in the morning for inexplicable reasons

Similar:

cryptic; cryptical; deep; inscrutable; mysterious; mystifying (of an obscure nature)

paradoxical; self-contradictory (seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true)

unaccountable; unexplainable (not to be accounted for or explained)

unexplained (having the reason or cause not made clear)

Also:

incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)

insoluble (admitting of no solution or explanation)

Derivation:

incomprehensibility (the quality of being incomprehensible)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Difficult to understand

Synonyms:

incomprehensible; uncomprehensible

Context example:

the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible

Similar:

dark; obscure (marked by difficulty of style or expression)

enigmatic; enigmatical; puzzling (not clear to the understanding)

unfathomable (incapable of being fully understood)

impenetrable (impossible to understand)

indecipherable (impossible to determine the meaning of)

lost; missed (not caught with the senses or the mind)

opaque; unintelligible (hard or impossible to understand)

Also:

unclear (not clear to the mind)

incomprehensible; inexplicable (incapable of being explained or accounted for)

unintelligible (poorly articulated or enunciated, or drowned by noise)

Antonym:

comprehensible (capable of being comprehended or understood)

Derivation:

incomprehensibility (the quality of being incomprehensible)

 Context examples 

But to their nostrils came the myriad smells of an Indian camp, carrying a story that was largely incomprehensible to One Eye, but every detail of which the she-wolf knew.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Well, some people's feelings are incomprehensible.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

How Charles could take such a thing into his head was always incomprehensible to me.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Oh! to be sure, cried Emma, it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

That was all; but brief as it was, and to me incomprehensible, it filled the squire and Dr. Livesey with delight.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Oh, Elinor, how incomprehensible are your feelings!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

It seemed an amazing and incomprehensible thing.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

We had only been a few hours in Devonshire, and that he should give up an investigation which he had begun so brilliantly was quite incomprehensible to me.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I believe the theme of this incomprehensible conundrum was the moon.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)