unanswerable
adjective
un·an·swer·able
ˌən-ˈan(t)s-rə-bəl,
-ˈan(t)-sə-
: not capable of being answered
also
: irrefutable
Synonyms
Examples of unanswerable in a Sentence
the unanswerable assertion that she didn't know much about art but she knew what she liked
Recent Examples on the Web
Modernity did not, Wang argues, present them with an unanswerable challenge, setting up a clash between the old and the new.
—
Rana Mitter, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024
This Is Why asks a lot of questions, often unanswerable ones.
—Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 8 Oct. 2023
Engaging with them reduces the brain to the status of a six-year-old tugging at the sleeve of an adult with a checklist of unanswerable questions: How do these things stay upright?
—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 27 Mar. 2024
His declarative sentences turn upward at the end, like a series of unanswerable questions.
—Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 22 Mar. 2024
The reader is perpetually aware of big, perhaps unanswerable questions: What makes a culture flourish?
—Claudia Roth Pierpont, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2024
Even when families in Gaza secure shelter and there is no immediate threat of a missile strike or an Israeli military ground invasion, unanswerable questions linger.
—Ghada Abdulfattah, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Feb. 2024
The awful, unanswerable questions in the Quarles household are plaguing hundreds of families in the Washington, D.C., region this year as the homicide rate soars, despite decreases in big cities across the U.S.
Violent crime ebbed last year after a pandemic-era peak in most American cities.
—USA TODAY, 22 Jan. 2024
But then the plates shift beneath the ocean floor—this can take years, a decade or more—and something murky and unanswerable rears up, just under the surface of your consciousness, unknown and yet profoundly certain, humming at a low and dizzying frequency.
—Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2023
Rana Mitter, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024
This Is Why asks a lot of questions, often unanswerable ones.
—Larisha Paul, Rolling Stone, 8 Oct. 2023
Engaging with them reduces the brain to the status of a six-year-old tugging at the sleeve of an adult with a checklist of unanswerable questions: How do these things stay upright?
—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 27 Mar. 2024
His declarative sentences turn upward at the end, like a series of unanswerable questions.
—Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 22 Mar. 2024
The reader is perpetually aware of big, perhaps unanswerable questions: What makes a culture flourish?
—Claudia Roth Pierpont, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2024
Even when families in Gaza secure shelter and there is no immediate threat of a missile strike or an Israeli military ground invasion, unanswerable questions linger.
—Ghada Abdulfattah, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Feb. 2024
The awful, unanswerable questions in the Quarles household are plaguing hundreds of families in the Washington, D.C., region this year as the homicide rate soars, despite decreases in big cities across the U.S.
Violent crime ebbed last year after a pandemic-era peak in most American cities.
—USA TODAY, 22 Jan. 2024
But then the plates shift beneath the ocean floor—this can take years, a decade or more—and something murky and unanswerable rears up, just under the surface of your consciousness, unknown and yet profoundly certain, humming at a low and dizzying frequency.
—Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 20 Nov. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unanswerable.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near unanswerable
Cite this Entry
“Unanswerable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unanswerable. Accessed 27 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
unanswerable
adjective
un·an·swer·able
ˌən-ˈan(t)s-(ə-)rə-bəl
ˈən-
: not answerable
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