Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not legible or decipherable.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Incapable of being read; obscure or defaced so as not to be decipherable; loosely, hard to read.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Incapable of being read; not legible
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not clear enough to be read;
unreadable ; notlegible ordecipherable .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective (of handwriting, print, etc.) not legible
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Most pernicious consequences [would follow (?) _ -- illegible in MS_.] and many other districts would be disloyal and rebellious; and it would be necessary, when they should have sufficient religious instruction, to go back and win them and [_illegible in MS_.] anew.
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Why do you say that? she asks, her expression illegible in the dark.
Hollywood Savage Kristin McCloy 2010
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Why do you say that? she asks, her expression illegible in the dark.
Hollywood Savage Kristin McCloy 2010
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Your letter of June 18th from [gap word illegible] is at hand.
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Warning: when they check the signatures the term "illegible" is often used quite liberally and they may try to discard MANY signatures with that bogus claim.
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The words on the banner were illegible from the sidewalk, but from office windows inside the tower the slogan on the banner could be clearly read: “Global warming kills more people than 9/11 every week.”
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It hadn't really occurred to me before that you could have serif, sans serif, modern and antique Korean typefaces before (because I'd never really thought about it) and I began to realise that I'd only ever seen 'foreign' type on documents intended for western audiences - hence Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic always looked 'traditional' (the way 'ye olde' English is always rendered in illegible Germanic type, I suppose.)
'Modern' Arabic typefaces Jonathan 2007
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To print books is a little more difficult, because genius so often rejoices in illegible handwriting.
Different Drummers 1991
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Indeed, it has only one drawback, and that probably is regarded as an advantage by the profesors; it is that one's mistakes may be detected at a glance; for there is no chance to hide them in illegible writing.
The Story of My Life Annie Sullivan 1905
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These Navy awards were a result of an assault behind enemy lines in which the SEAL unit was sent in to free friendly Vietnamese who were held captive an {one word illegible} in which half of the Americans were lost in combat.
Heroes or Villains? 2010
sueflay commented on the word illegible
I've always had difficulty pronouncing this word. I have to take it very slowly. I try not to use it for that reason, but I adore the alliteration and construction of it. Billy Bragg makes it even better with this bit: "I said, 'I'm the most illegible bachelor in town.' And she said 'Yeah that's why I could never understand any of those silly letters you sent me.'"
swoon!
May 22, 2007
sonofgroucho commented on the word illegible
Perfectly describes my handwriting.
May 22, 2007