as in illegible
incapable of being read or deciphered
the old book contains an inscription, but the handwriting is cramped and unreadable
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Recent Examples of unreadable
Transit sources told The News that footage on the cards is stored in a proprietary format, and should be unreadable without the MTA’s own software.
—
Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 1 May 2025
Eventually, the register ended up in the collections of the Cambridge University Library, and in 2019, researchers discovered an unreadable handwritten fragment hidden inside its binding, which triggered a yearslong restoration project.
—Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Apr. 2025
Fuzzy, unreadable text is now (largely) a thing of the past.
—Barry Collins, Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2025
Your data is also encrypted, meaning it’s scrambled into an unreadable format to prevent unauthorized access.
—Ryley Amond, CNBC, 27 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for unreadable
Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 1 May 2025
Eventually, the register ended up in the collections of the Cambridge University Library, and in 2019, researchers discovered an unreadable handwritten fragment hidden inside its binding, which triggered a yearslong restoration project.
—Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Apr. 2025
Fuzzy, unreadable text is now (largely) a thing of the past.
—Barry Collins, Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2025
Your data is also encrypted, meaning it’s scrambled into an unreadable format to prevent unauthorized access.
—Ryley Amond, CNBC, 27 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for unreadable
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unreadable
illegible
Adjective
-
Some of the headstones have legible names, others are illegible or are just horizontal blocks indicating a grave.—
Briah Lumpkins,
Charlotte Observer,
8 May 2025
-
In his debut novel, Ocean Vuong took pains to be illegible.—
Andrea Long Chu,
Vulture,
6 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unreadable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unreadable. Accessed 6 Jun. 2025.
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