incognoscible

English

Etymology

in- +‎ cognoscible

Adjective

incognoscible (comparative more incognoscible, superlative most incognoscible)

1. (rare, dated) Not capable of being known; incomprehensible.
   • 1827, Jeremy Bentham, Rationale of Judicial Evidence, vol. 4, book 8, ch. 18:

     6. The state of the law rendered more and more incognoscible. By wrapping up the real dispositions of the law in a covering of nonsense, the knowledge of it is rendered impossible to the bulk of the people.

   • 1860, John Pringle Nichol, A Cyclopædia of the Physical Sciences, Charles Griffin and Co., page 671:

     Regarded in this light, the idea of Polarity . . . has nothing to do with the fancy of Terrestrial Magnets, with Hypotheses concerning impalpable and incognoscible Fluids, with Atoms having Poles, or with doctrines concerning Ethereal vibrations.

   • 1868, Thomas Skinner, “How Shall We Treat Cholera?”, in British Medical Journal, volume 2, page 235:

     I freely admit the existence of a poisoned condition of the system from without by an invisible and hitherto incognoscible something.

   • 1926, Burnett Hillman Streeter, Reality: A New Correlation of Science and Religion, Macmillan, page 113:

     The still small voice of conscience and the sense of beauty are direct messages from the incognoscible Beyond.

   • 2010, Constantin Portelli, A Unique God, A Universal Religion, →ISBN, page 6:

     [W]e agree that certain aspects, which appear in our material world, have their origin from some incognoscible transcendence.

Synonyms

• unknowable

Derived terms

• incognoscibility

Related terms

• incognoscent
• incognoscenti

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.

Spanish

Adjective

incognoscible m or f (masculine and feminine plural incognoscibles)

1. unknowable

Further reading

• “incognoscible”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014