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

2. 1. beyond human understanding

   2. ( as noun )

      the unknowable

Unknowable

²

/ ʌnˈnəʊəbəl /

noun

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

Other Word Forms

• unknowableness noun
• unknowably adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of unknowable¹

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

Example Sentences

During the 1920s and ’30s, nonlinear narratives of this nature would come to be seen as models of the modern mind: a dark, unknowable place riddled with unconscious desires and perverse complexes.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

In its lawsuit, ExxonMobil said the law would force it “to engage in granular conjecture about unknowable future developments and to publicly disseminate that speculation on its website.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The answer is plainly, unknowable - the great "if" that could have changed the fate of America.

Read more on BBC

This behavior also reduces serious political and societal matters to digital memes, jokes and ephemera, compromising reality testing and making truth itself unknowable.

Read more on Salon

We also know that the FBI director from 2001 to 2013, exactly the years when the invisible powers and unknowable extent of the surveillance state were most dramatically expanded, was Robert Mueller.

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• baffling 
• cryptic 
• curious 
• dark 
• enigmatic 
• inexplicable 
• inscrutable 
• magical 
• mystical 
• mystifying www.thesaurus.com
• obscure 
• perplexing 
• puzzling 
• secretive 
• strange 
• unknown 
• weird