English Dictionary

UNACCOUNTABLE

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IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unaccountable mean? 

UNACCOUNTABLE (adjective)
  The adjective UNACCOUNTABLE has 2 senses:

1. not to be accounted for or explainedplay

2. free from control or responsibilityplay

  Familiarity information: UNACCOUNTABLE used as an adjective is rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


UNACCOUNTABLE (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Not to be accounted for or explained

Synonyms:

unaccountable; unexplainable

Context example:

an unexplainable fear

Similar:

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


Sense 2

Meaning:

Free from control or responsibility

Similar:

irresponsible (showing lack of care for consequences)


 Context examples 


My master likewise mentioned another quality which his servants had discovered in several Yahoos, and to him was wholly unaccountable.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Very odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But the whole of their behaviour to each other has been unaccountable!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

In every view it is unaccountable!

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He accepted it as he accepted all the unaccountable doings and manifestations of the gods.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The whole building looked to me as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And as to making me an offer, or anything like it, there must be some unaccountable mistake.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

And it is this letter—this letter which may well mean the expenditure of a thousand millions and the lives of a hundred thousand men—which has become lost in this unaccountable fashion.

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

The first sight that was presented to your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so unaccountable a manner and placed, as it were, by some fiend across your path.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Her start was perceptible only to herself; but she instantly felt that she was the greatest simpleton in the world, the most unaccountable and absurd!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"Old is gold." (English proverb)

"As you sow, so shall you reap." (Bulgarian proverb)

"The deserter is the brother of the murderer." (Arabic proverb)

"Those who had some shame are dead." (Egyptian proverb)



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