unanswerable

English

Alternative forms

• unaunswerable (obsolete, rare)

Etymology

From un- +‎ answerable.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ʌnˈɑːnsəɹəb(ə)l/

• Audio (Mid-Atlantic US):

  (file)

Adjective

unanswerable (comparative more unanswerable, superlative most unanswerable)

1. Not answerable; impossible to answer.

   Synonym: answerless

   Antonym: answerable

2. Impossible to dispute or rebut; irrefutable; conclusive.

   Synonym: indisputable

   Antonyms: disputable, inconclusive, refutable

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     If I have not said much about it before, it was, of course, that the Professor's earnest desire was that no possible rumor of the unanswerable argument which we carried should be allowed to leak out until the moment came when his enemies were to be confuted.

   • 1926, Great Britain Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Economic Series, Issues 1-6‎^[1], H.M. Stationery Office, page 75:

     The map is never an unanswerable argument in transportation.

Related terms

• answerless
• unanswerability
• unanswerableness
• unanswerably

 

Translations

not answerable; impossible to answer

• Dutch: onbeantwoordbaar, antwoordloos
• German: unbeantwortbar (de), antwortlos
• Irish: dofhreagartha
• Portuguese: irrespondível, sem resposta/respostas
• Romanian: iresponsabil (ro) m

impossible to dispute or rebut; irrefutable; conclusive

• Irish: dobhréagnaithe, dosháraithe
• Polish: bezsporny (pl)
• Portuguese: irrespondível, irrefutável (pt), irreplicável

Noun

unanswerable (plural unanswerables)

1. Something that cannot be answered.
   • 2005, Anupam Nagar, Recritiquing John Keats, page 55:

     These unanswerables are left open to the viewer's own construction by the sculptor.

References

• “unanswerable”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “unanswerable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.