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View synonyms for unknowable

unknowable

[ uhn-noh-uh-buhl ]

adjective

  1. not knowable; incapable of being known or understood.


noun

  1. something that is unknowable.
  2. the Unknowable, the postulated reality lying behind all phenomena but not cognizable by any of the processes by which the mind cognizes phenomenal objects.

unknowable

1

/ ʌnˈnəʊəbəl /

adjective

  1. incapable of being known or understood
    1. beyond human understanding
    2. ( as noun )

      the unknowable



Unknowable

2

/ ʌnˈnəʊəbəl /

noun

  1. the Unknowable
    the Unknowable philosophy the ultimate reality that underlies all phenomena but cannot be known

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Derived Forms

  • unˈknowably, adverb
  • unˈknowableness, noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of unknowable1

Middle English word dating back to 1325–75; un- 1, knowable

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Example Sentences

This made the ancient flora of modern deserts relatively unknowable.

There’s a sense of conflict inherent in her music, beauty and chaos entwined, jazz tradition and the unknowable are all there at once.

As we’ve heard today, there are a variety of moving targets, a variety of unknowable variables, when you think about the future of work.

My heart felt stirred and shaken up, as if massaged by some great, unknowable force.

Believing love to be unknowable is a wholly disempowering stance toward something with enormous consequences for our daily lives.

X and Y could be terrible on their own, unknowable terms, and therefore incomparable.

He was always affable but ultimately unknowable; intellectually incurious but ferociously ambitious.

Doug Kenney was many things to many people—funny, generous, unknowable.

The Glassless will walk around with heads ducked down, desperate to avoid the mysterious, unknowable intentions of the Glassed.

“People are unknowable,” Hardy mutters—his last lesson for Miller.

One might almost say that the air, the invisible air, is full of unknowable Forces, whose mysterious presence we have to endure.

I have no intention of discussing here the philosophic value of the "Unknowable."

With this we can all agree, but it does not bring us any nearer an "unknowable."

We have already referred to the use made by religionists of Spencer's "Unknowable."

He bases all his knowledge upon his knowledge of "the unknowable."

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