INTANGIBLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does intangible mean? 

• INTANGIBLE (noun)
  The noun INTANGIBLE has 1 sense:

1. assets that are saleable though not material or physical

  Familiarity information: INTANGIBLE used as a noun is very rare.

• INTANGIBLE (adjective)
  The adjective INTANGIBLE has 4 senses:

1. (of especially business assets) not having physical substance or intrinsic productive value

2. incapable of being perceived by the senses especially the sense of touch

3. hard to pin down or identify

4. lacking substance or reality; incapable of being touched or seen

  Familiarity information: INTANGIBLE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INTANGIBLE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Assets that are saleable though not material or physical

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

intangible; intangible asset

Hypernyms ("intangible" is a kind of...):

assets (anything of material value or usefulness that is owned by a person or company)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "intangible"):

good will; goodwill ((accounting) an intangible asset valued according to the advantage or reputation a business has acquired (over and above its tangible assets))

• INTANGIBLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(of especially business assets) not having physical substance or intrinsic productive value

Context example:

intangible assets such as good will

Domain category:

business; business enterprise; commercial enterprise (the activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects)

Antonym:

tangible ((of especially business assets) having physical substance and intrinsic monetary value)

Derivation:

intangibleness (the quality of being intangible and not perceptible by touch)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Incapable of being perceived by the senses especially the sense of touch

Synonyms:

impalpable; intangible

Context example:

the intangible constituent of energy

Also:

abstract (existing only in the mind; separated from embodiment)

Antonym:

tangible (perceptible by the senses especially the sense of touch)

Derivation:

intangibility; intangibleness (the quality of being intangible and not perceptible by touch)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Hard to pin down or identify

Context example:

an intangible feeling of impending disaster

Similar:

unidentifiable (impossible to identify)

Derivation:

intangibleness (the quality of being intangible and not perceptible by touch)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Lacking substance or reality; incapable of being touched or seen

Synonyms:

intangible; nonphysical

Context example:

that intangible thing--the soul

Similar:

immaterial; nonmaterial (not consisting of matter)

Derivation:

intangibility; intangibleness (the quality of being intangible and not perceptible by touch)

 Context examples 

I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the existence of so intangible a thing as a shadow.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He was no longer afraid of minor things, and much of his timidity had vanished, though the unknown never ceased to press upon him with its mysteries and terrors, intangible and ever-menacing.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

This type of study is multidisciplinary in nature and takes into consideration the social and economic costs (resource utilization costs including direct, indirect, and intangible costs) of drug therapy in addition to its direct therapeutic benefits.

(Pharmacoeconomic Study, NCI Thesaurus)

Rhyme and metre and structure were serious enough in themselves, but there was, over and beyond them, an intangible and evasive something that he caught in all great poetry, but which he could not catch and imprison in his own.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“Oh! There is nothing,” observed Hamlet's aunt, “so satisfactory to one! There is nothing that is so much one's beau-ideal of—of all that sort of thing, speaking generally. There are some low minds (not many, I am happy to believe, but there are some) that would prefer to do what I should call bow down before idols. Positively Idols! Before service, intellect, and so on. But these are intangible points. Blood is not so. We see Blood in a nose, and we know it. We meet with it in a chin, and we say, “There it is! That's Blood!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There was something ominous about it, and in intangible ways one was made to feel that the worst was about to come.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Unlike man, whose gods are of the unseen and the overguessed, vapours and mists of fancy eluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodness and power, intangible out-croppings of self into the realm of spirit—unlike man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to the fire find their gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying earth-space and requiring time for the accomplishment of their ends and their existence.

(White Fang, by Jack London)