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
-
Denim shifts toward a mysterious direction in Blooming Darkness.—
Angela Velasquez,
Sourcing Journal,
27 May 2025
-
Carlton Reid Based on 20 years of observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, new research sheds light on one of the solar system’s most mysterious planets.—
Ryan Waniata,
Wired News,
27 May 2025
Adjective
-
Consumers have gotten used to a complicated annual plan selection, confusing industry jargon, and incomprehensible coverage policies.—
Dan Gingiss,
Forbes.com,
11 Apr. 2025
-
Every version of it, whether recorded in a studio, live with a full orchestra or only a piano, just rails through absolutely incomprehensible storytelling (something about virgins on a spaceship?) with a lusty guitar and smashed piano chords.—
Shana Naomi Krochmal,
Vulture,
4 Apr. 2025
Adjective
-
The company hit that once unfathomable goal by the third quarter of 2024, and the company’s market capitalization has skyrocketed by another 370% since to $125 billion, amid a frenzy for anything remotely AI-adjacent.—
Matt Durot,
Forbes.com,
19 May 2025
-
The other features unfathomable darkness and is depicted comically in Silverman’s memoir, Bedwetter, and the still-developing Bedwetter: The Musical, with music by the late Adam Schlesinger.—
Stephen Rodrick,
Rolling Stone,
18 May 2025
Adjective
-
As an escaped convict posing as a beloved preacher, and as his gentle, upright twin, Robeson embodies a devastating split between appearance and truth, and whose uncanny doubling plays out in a community shaped by racial violence, spiritual deception, and economic precarity.—
Samantha Bergeson,
IndieWire,
21 May 2025
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Many of these films, the recent Snow White most nefarious amongst them, are leaden with uncanny valley CGI, bizarre green screen devotion and a surprising lack of artistic intent.—
Gregory Nussen,
Deadline,
20 May 2025
Adjective
-
Decisions once made by human engineers in the future are now being executed by models whose internal logic may be unintelligible even to their creators.—
Anuj Tyagi,
Forbes.com,
16 May 2025
-
The words were unintelligible on the video, but Sacramento Police Department officials in a statement summarizing the incident said the man told officers to shoot him.—
Darrell Smith,
Sacbee.com,
15 May 2025
Adjective
-
This sweetly reticent follow-up is a drama about the impenetrable singularity of a young girl’s mind.—
Justin Chang,
New Yorker,
26 May 2025
-
Things only get less interesting as that love triangles widens into an awkward kind of square, the chiaroscuro splendor of Soderbergh’s cinematography laboring to compensate for a murder-mystery that’s as scattered and impenetrable as Berlin itself.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
14 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Everyone knows Gaudí’s architecture; his furniture is a more esoteric thing.—
Anthony Paletta,
Curbed,
20 May 2025
-
His tastes ebbed and flowed between aggressive music and more esoteric tastes, as his collaborators came to range from Richard Thompson to Hal Willner, whose tribute to Federico Fellini and Nino Rota included contributions from Thomas, as did a collection of sea shanties.—
Chris Willman,
Variety,
24 Apr. 2025
Adjective
-
There are some opaque methods for opening car tailgates, but Smart’s must be one of the most obscure.—
James Morris,
Forbes.com,
24 May 2025
-
That brings us to Biden’s cancer, a diagnosis that surely cast a pall over the various book tours and panel discussions on what the Bidens and their handlers did or did not obscure.—
The Editorial Board,
Chicago Tribune,
20 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ungraspable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ungraspable. Accessed 4 Jun. 2025.
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