inscrutable
adjective
in·scru·ta·ble
in-ˈskrü-tə-bəl 
: not readily investigated, interpreted, or understood : mysterious
an inscrutable smile
inscrutable motives
Did you know?
Scrutinizing the inscrutable may be futile: even close scrutiny can fail to decipher it. Scrutinizing the scrutable, on the other hand, is likely to yield some understanding. All of these scrut- words have the same Latin root: scrutari, meaning “to search or examine.” While scrutiny, scrutinize, and inscrutable all prove themselves useful in everyday discourse, English speakers don’t tend to call much on scrutable, which functions as a synonym of comprehensible.
Examples of inscrutable in a Sentence
Supersymmetry is a magic mirror, and everything in what we imagine to be the real world has its ghostly, inscrutable mirror image.
—
Ian Stewart, Prospect, September 2003
Of all the myths that have grown up around Alan Greenspan, the most powerful is the idea that he's willfully inscrutable.
—James Surowiecki, New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2001
That wily politicians might adopt Franklin's distinction between appearance and reality to become inscrutable confidence men did not seem to trouble him.
—John H. Summers, Journal of American History, December 2000
an inscrutable work of art
He was a quiet, inscrutable man.
Ian Stewart, Prospect, September 2003
Of all the myths that have grown up around Alan Greenspan, the most powerful is the idea that he's willfully inscrutable.
—James Surowiecki, New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2001
That wily politicians might adopt Franklin's distinction between appearance and reality to become inscrutable confidence men did not seem to trouble him.
—John H. Summers, Journal of American History, December 2000
an inscrutable work of art
He was a quiet, inscrutable man.
Recent Examples on the Web
The Buccaneers, however, tries to girly-pop-ify this deal and its setting in increasingly inscrutable and faux-feminist ways.
—Elle Carroll, Vulture, 11 Aug. 2025
Getting to the bottom of, say, the seed-oil controversy requires engaging with thorny scientific debates that reference inscrutable research papers; embracing the natural and ancestral by opting for tallow is an attractively simple-seeming alternative.
—Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 11 Aug. 2025
Delineating each and every Speedmaster reference would be a fruitless errand — tiny nuances during early production years mean that there are quite literally countless inscrutable variants within single reference numbers.
—Oren Hartov, Robb Report, 23 July 2025
Data fed into these systems passes through layers of hidden nodes, performing thousands of computations that are largely inscrutable.
—Anise Madh, Forbes.com, 22 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for inscrutable
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Elle Carroll, Vulture, 11 Aug. 2025
Getting to the bottom of, say, the seed-oil controversy requires engaging with thorny scientific debates that reference inscrutable research papers; embracing the natural and ancestral by opting for tallow is an attractively simple-seeming alternative.
—Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 11 Aug. 2025
Delineating each and every Speedmaster reference would be a fruitless errand — tiny nuances during early production years mean that there are quite literally countless inscrutable variants within single reference numbers.
—Oren Hartov, Robb Report, 23 July 2025
Data fed into these systems passes through layers of hidden nodes, performing thousands of computations that are largely inscrutable.
—Anise Madh, Forbes.com, 22 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for inscrutable
Cite this Entry
“Inscrutable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inscrutable. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
inscrutable
adjective
in·scru·ta·ble
in-ˈskrüt-ə-bəl
: not easily understood : mysterious
an inscrutable expression
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