un-understandableness

• ununderstandableness

un-understandableness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being ununderstandable.
   • 1827, “Diary of an M. P.”, in The Inspector, Literary Magazine and Review, volume II, London: Effingham Wilson, page 325:

     The following passage of the opium-eater’s own, evidently intended to be very fine, possesses as much of what Jeremy Bentham calls un-understandableness, as any I have for some time met, even from the Kantean school.

   • 1894, Richard Wagner, “Preface to the Public Issue of the Poem of the Bühnenfestspiel “Der Ring des Nibelungen.””, in William Ashton Ellis, transl., Richard Wagner’s Prose Works, volume III (The Theatre), London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., page 278:

     Where he erst arrived with weary brain, in search of dissipation, and found nothing but a new exertion and thus a painful over[-]strain; where he therefore had to complain of too great length, of too much seriousness, or finally of complete un[-]understandableness: […]

   • 1910, The Book-plate Booklet, page 36:

     But we have not yet reached the height from which we may appreciate his originality and “un-understandableness.”

   • 1918 March 27, “Education Day”, in The Albany-Decatur Daily‎, volume 7, number 26, Albany, Ala.:

     His address on Robert Browning was a delight, dwelling especially on the spiritual side of this man’s gift to the world, though sometimes speaking of the un-understandableness of some of his poems.

   • 1935 April 2, Florence Eberhard, “Marriage Between Friends”, in The Kansas City Star, volume 55, number 197, Kansas City, Mo., page 19:

     She could have told him that life was like that, too, but only a light fluttery sigh answered him as she moved on, leaving him shaking his head at an age-old question, the un-understandableness of women.

   • 1937 March 7, ““The Metaphysical Poets.””, in The State, Columbia, S.C., page four-A:

     We may be mistaken, for we make no pretension to mysticism save perhaps as one who stands in an astonished awe of the un-understandableness of what and whence and why and whither of ourselves and the universes of worlds, with all their beauty;

   • 1944, Taylor Caldwell, The Final Hour, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 36:

     Only the supernaturalism , the un[-]understandableness, of the human soul and mind.

   • 1981, Shri Raghavendra, His Life and Works: Brahma Sutras with the Commentary of Shri Raghavendra, page 71:

     When according to the method that is to be applied in future ‘un-understandableness’ is made to refer to insentient thing, then this ‘un-understandableness is easily applicable to Prakriti’ and there is no contradiction when [] is adopted as the mode.

   • 1996, Terra Nova: Nature & Culture, page 100:

     I knew that the imagery held all I could possibly hold and want to say, and I marveled at the un[-]understandableness of it.

• incomprehensibility
• incomprehensibleness
• un-understandability
• non-understandability