ungraspable en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /ʌnˈɡɹɑːspəb(ə)l/ (UK)
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Germanic *un- Proto-West Germanic *un- Old English un- Middle English un- English un- English grasp Proto-Indo-European *-dʰlom Proto-Italic *-ðlom Proto-Italic *-ðlis Latin -bilis Latin -ābilis Old French -ablebor. Middle English -able English -able English graspable English ungraspable From un- + graspable.
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Not able to be reached or grasped.
It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
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(not-comparable) Not able to be remembered or comprehended.
Voldemorting is the anti-SEO, the anti-keyword, and the anti-hashtag. It transforms your subject from a single mass into an ungraspable swarm.
2018 September 10, Gretchen McCulloch, “Welcome to Voldemorting, the Ultimate SEO Dis”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2018:Before, somewhere and time ungraspable, blurred and beset with bewildering details, she had lain alone in bed, listening to gladsome bird voices, mingled with a sense of distressed humanity.
1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 250: