as in mysterious
impossible to understand
advanced scientific theories of ungraspable complexity for the layperson
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Recent Examples of ungraspable
Paul’s attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire.
—
Vlada Gelman, TVLine, 27 Jan. 2025
Eraserhead was so ungraspable, so far into left field, that most critics dismissed it at the time.
—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
One gazes into the geographical expanse of this place to try to grasp the ungraspable scale of things.
—Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s Magazine , 5 Jan. 2023
It’s a megagenre, something the poet-philosopher Timothy Morton might call a hyperobject, ungraspable in its ubiquity and scale.
—Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 13 Dec. 2022
The scope of something inexpressible, a mammoth, ungraspable intimation, had overtaken him.
—Greg Jackson, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
The ecological relationships that Darwin brings to our attention tell us of a world of bonds much more complex and ungraspable than had ever previously been supposed.
—Longreads, 23 Mar. 2021
The Internet of Things is an ungraspable future, particularly when the fact of a future for Earth at all sometimes sounds implausible.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 14 May 2020
The river itself was a standard-issue metaphor of time’s ungraspable flux and constancy.
—Wells Tower, Outside Online, 11 July 2018
Vlada Gelman, TVLine, 27 Jan. 2025
Eraserhead was so ungraspable, so far into left field, that most critics dismissed it at the time.
—Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
One gazes into the geographical expanse of this place to try to grasp the ungraspable scale of things.
—Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s Magazine , 5 Jan. 2023
It’s a megagenre, something the poet-philosopher Timothy Morton might call a hyperobject, ungraspable in its ubiquity and scale.
—Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 13 Dec. 2022
The scope of something inexpressible, a mammoth, ungraspable intimation, had overtaken him.
—Greg Jackson, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2021
The ecological relationships that Darwin brings to our attention tell us of a world of bonds much more complex and ungraspable than had ever previously been supposed.
—Longreads, 23 Mar. 2021
The Internet of Things is an ungraspable future, particularly when the fact of a future for Earth at all sometimes sounds implausible.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 14 May 2020
The river itself was a standard-issue metaphor of time’s ungraspable flux and constancy.
—Wells Tower, Outside Online, 11 July 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ungraspable
Adjective
-
After his first game since Feb. 26, Porziņģis detailed his long journey back from a mysterious illness.—
Jay King,
The Athletic,
16 Mar. 2025
-
Everyone is a suspect, and there’s a lot of buildup to finding out what happened at a fateful St. Patrick’s Day party 15 years prior — especially when Chelsea (Ilana Glazer) makes a mysterious reference to an incident that made the entire school ostracize her.—
Marianne Eloise,
Vulture,
14 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Upon agreement, their dialogue shifts to a series of sounds incomprehensible to humans.—
Dr. Diane Hamilton,
Forbes,
25 Feb. 2025
-
In a twist that’s almost incomprehensible today, the Chinese government even officially adopted the US State Department’s method for reporting air quality.—
Zeyi Yang,
WIRED,
5 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable.—
Dan Perry,
Newsweek,
28 Feb. 2025
-
The idea that someone in the industrial sector had a past in film was almost unfathomable to them.—
Kody Boye,
USA TODAY,
21 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
An uncanny all-star cast (including Ken Cosgrove actor Aaron Staton); a resplendent recreation of postwar Los Angeles; a spate of unsolved crimes.—
Lewis Gordon,
Vulture,
19 Mar. 2025
-
Going from the staid post-Impressionism of her artistic education at London’s Slade School of Fine Art to a world of dreams, magic, and the uncanny opened a door.—
Eliza Goodpasture,
ARTnews.com,
18 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Followers criticized TikToker Easton Simpson for using his spot at the Kingdom of the Planet of The Apes premiere to prank the film’s actors by asking unintelligible questions.—
CT Jones,
Rolling Stone,
6 Mar. 2025
-
The sometimes unintelligible lyrics roll out over spare acoustic guitar in what sounds like an unfinished demo.—
Gil Kaufman,
Billboard,
16 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
It’s apparently been rigged into an impenetrable torture device on wheels.—
Frank Scheck,
The Hollywood Reporter,
18 Mar. 2025
-
The black-and-white cinematography is effectively murky, painting everything from circus sideshows to public baths with impenetrable inky corners.—
Joe Reid,
Vulture,
28 Feb. 2025
Adjective
-
Cordelia Cupp is a collector of esoteric information and her desire to learn things about the White House while also learning things about a crime borders on charming.—
Daniel Fienberg,
The Hollywood Reporter,
20 Mar. 2025
-
The esoteric will never sit completely comfortably in the mainstream, because that’s the point of it: to be unusual, bizarre, absurd.—
Eliza Goodpasture,
ARTnews.com,
18 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Disney had released some trailers but this was still an obscure Star Wars series following characters that most fans knew little about, and casual fans had never heard of before.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes,
10 Mar. 2025
-
Prior to 1950, McCarthy was an obscure first-term senator from Wisconsin.—
Beverly Gage,
The New Yorker,
10 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ungraspable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ungraspable. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
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