Search the Dictionary

Not apprehensible; unintelligible; inconceivable. Milton.

Not uttered with articulation or intelligible distinctness, as speech or words. Music which is inarticulate poesy. Dryden.

An averment employed in pleading, to point the application of matter otherwise unintelligible; an interpretative parenthesis thrown into quoted matter to explain an obscure word or words; -- as, the plaintiff avers that the defendant said that he (innuendo the plaintiff) was a thief. Wharton.

The quality or state of being intelligible; clearness; perspicuity; definiteness.

In an intelligible manner; so as to be understood; clearly; plainly; as, to write or speak intelligibly.

To explain or tell the meaning of; to expound; to translate orally into intelligible or familiar language or terms; to decipher; to define; -- applied esp. to language, but also to dreams, signs, conduct, mysteries, etc.; as, to interpret the Hebrew language to an Englishman; to interpret an Indian speech. Emmanuel, wh…

Confused, unintelligible language; gibberish; hence, an artificial idiom or dialect; cant language; slang. "A barbarous jargon." Macaulay. "All jargon of the schools." Prior. The jargon which serves the traffickers. Johnson.

A written or printed communication; a message expressed in intelligible characters on something adapted to conveyance, as paper, parchment, etc.; an epistle. The style of letters ought to be free, easy, and natural. Walsh.

To make clear and intelligible. Time only can liquidate the meaning of all parts of a compound system. A. Hamilton.

Enlightened; intelligent; also, clear; intelligible; as, a luminous mind. " Luminous eloquence." Macaulay. " A luminous statement." Brougham. Luminous paint, a paint made up with some phosphorescent substance, as sulphide of calcium, which after exposure to a strong light is luminous in the dark for a time.…

not sense, or has no sense; words, or language, which have no meaning, or which convey no intelligible ideas; absurdity.

nder obscure; to darken; to make dim; to keep in the dark; to hide; to make less visible, intelligible, legible, glorious, beautiful, or illustrious. They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne's oak, with obscured lights. Shak. Why, 't is an office of discovery, love, And I should be obscured. Shak. There is scarce an…

The quality or state of being obscure; darkness; privacy; inconspicuousness; unintelligibleness; uncertainty. Yuo are not for obscurity designed. Dryden. They were now brought forth from obscurity, to be contemplated by artists with admiration and despair. Macaulay.

Obscure; not clear; unintelligible. [Colloq.]

state of things gone by. "The past, at least, is secure." D. Webster. The present is only intelligible in the light of the past, often a very remote past indeed. Trench.

ogers. "Very punctilious copies of any letters. The Nation. Punctilious in the simple and intelligible instances of common life. I. Taylor. -- Punc*til"ious*ly, adv. -- Punc*til"ious*ness, n.

To reduce to simple or intelligible notions; -- said of complex ideas or obscure questions; to make clear or certain; to free from doubt; to disentangle; to unravel; to explain; hence, to clear up, or dispel, as doubt; as, to resolve a riddle. "Resolve my doubt." Shak. To the resolving whereof we must first know that t…

larity of character which makes Christianity and its principal doctrines distasteful or unintelligible. I. Taylor.

Direct; clear; intelligible; not abstruse or enigmatical; as, a simple statement; simple language.

The art of writing in cipher, or in characters which are not intelligible except to persons who have the key; cryptography.