intelligibility
Americannoun
-
the quality or condition of being intelligible; capability of being understood.
-
something intelligible.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of intelligibility
First recorded in 1600–10; intelligible + -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Much of it was lost to the audience, since reverberant amplification gave heroic heft to Blanchett’s voice at the cost of intelligibility.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 19, 2026
I appreciated its intelligibility and, from where I stood, its edge.
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2021
But like most palindromes, Tenet prizes reversibility over intelligibility: The point of “Able was I ere I saw Elba” is that it reads the same both ways, not that it teaches you anything.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2020
To great effect, this lack of narrative intelligibility challenges the implicit bargain between the film and viewer regarding the nature of the truth.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2019
If you watch any object as it fades in distance, it will lose gradually its force, its intelligibility, its anatomy, its whole comprehensible being; but it will never lose its gradation of light.
From Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) by Ruskin, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
