How to Use illegible in a Sentence

illegible

adjective

• The date is filled in, and the illegible name of some pesticide.
  — Elisa Albert, Longreads, 7 May 2018
• The letters are smudged and the last third of the paragraph is nearly illegible.
  — New York Times, 11 June 2021
• The headstones for the most part are weathered and illegible, but several have dates of deaths in the mid-1800s.
  — Richard Mason, Arkansas Online, 13 Dec. 2020
• The fragment, which takes on the shape of what looks like Africa and parts of East Asia, is completely illegible.
  — Susie Schmank, Indianapolis Star, 7 Oct. 2017
• Image From the ground, though, looking up, the work is a glowing, cherry smudge — the idea of a sign, but illegible.
  — Martha Schwendener, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024
• An image that looks great at a small size on a large screen might become tiny and illegible when scaled down on a small screen.
  — Rob Weychert, ProPublica, 4 Feb. 2022
• The county recorder’s office deemed it illegible and did not record the transfer.
  — Los Angeles Times, 18 May 2022
• In addition, an illegible word was written on the back of the statue, and blue paint was spattered around the base.
  — Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY, 24 July 2019
• A face with reptilian eyes appears on the back of a white van covered in enough dirt to make the license plate all but illegible.
  — Pavel Golovkin, The Denver Post, 28 Apr. 2017
• But way too many of its scenes take place in tedious, illegible darkness.
  — New York Times, 22 Apr. 2021
• The full original date on this photo from The Star’s archives is illegible, but the year is clearly 1950.
  — kansascity, 7 Feb. 2018
• The scholar, though, refused to allow her labor, her work, or her voice, which is so clear on the page, be rendered illegible.
  — Kirsten West Savali, Essence, 25 Nov. 2020
• Sometimes the names on census forms are illegible or spelled differently from one year to the next.
  — Tracy Scott Forson, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Feb. 2024
• Or what if the Russians one day hacked into a driverless car networks and sent all of the Democratic voters to the wrong precinct, making them illegible to vote?
  — Nick Bilton, vanityfair.com, 27 Sep. 2017
• Much like Littlefinger's scroll, the font was pretty illegible at first glance.
  — Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 30 Aug. 2017
• Gina Costa found that the city overpaid for work, and that tow slips were incomplete or illegible.
  — Brian Amaral, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Mar. 2023
• But the painting was difficult to see, and key details were almost illegible in the context of San Moise.
  — Washington Post, 27 June 2019
• For me, writing on a phone screen was even more illegible, leading to lots of transcription errors.
  — Larry Magid, The Mercury News, 30 Aug. 2019
• One call center agent said the issue was that his paperwork was illegible.
  — Hannah Dreier, Anchorage Daily News, 22 Dec. 2021
• In the past three years or so, however, tremors in my hands have rendered my handwriting mostly illegible.
  — Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 2 Nov. 2022
• However, the menu changes daily, written in near-illegible notebooks, so best to ask for the verbal version.
  — Bon Appetit, 25 June 2018
• As Palmer looked on, Jacobsen's scrawl became more and more illegible.
  — Dennis Manoloff, cleveland.com, 2 Aug. 2017
• They’re all typewritten in English, a few of them over and over again as Klari produced new drafts, editing by hand in the margins in her familiar, illegible – scrawl.
  — Katie Hafner, Scientific American, 31 Mar. 2022
• The words, as well as some illegible markings, were written with a marker on five bricks of the building’s exterior eastern wall.
  — Steve Sadin, chicagotribune.com, 29 Nov. 2021
• Coming into Wilbraham, Home of [illegible] Ice Cream, its sign was buried under snow.
  — Peter Rubin, Longreads, 26 Mar. 2024
• Even if yours does, the date can become basically illegible over time.
  — Nina Bahadur, SELF, 12 Sep. 2019
• Faulty machinery and mail ballots with illegible barcodes were partly to blame for the delay in results.
  — Dallas News, 4 Nov. 2020
• Say one of our story producers has an image that looks great in a desktop web browser but is illegible when it gets squished down into a mobile screen.
  — Propublica’s Design and Platform Team, ProPublica, 23 Mar. 2021
• The 17 ballots under review either arrived without postmark dates that showed whether they were sent on or before Election Day or with dates that were illegible.
  — Harriet Blair Rowan, The Mercury News, 30 Apr. 2024
• No illegible, incomplete, forged or altered entries will be accepted.
  — Sourcing Journal, 30 Aug. 2023

Last Updated: 9 Nov 2024