| 释义 |
undeˈcipherable, a.
[un-1 7 b and 5 b.]
That cannot be deciphered or made out; indecipherable: a. Of writings, inscriptions, etc.
1758H. Walpole Lett. to Mann 23 Feb. (1846) III. 346 Your copyist or his original have made undecypherable mistakes. a1827Miss Benger in Literary Souvenir 39 This paper..being in many parts almost undecypherable. 1862Stanley Serm. in East (1863) 136 In another fifty years it is probable that many of them will be almost undecypherable. 1877‘H. A. Page’ De Quincey II. xviii. 128 The rest of this letter is so mutilated as to be undecipherable.
b. transf.
1757Chesterfield Let. in Misc. Wks. (1777) II. 435 Public matters have been long, and are still, too undecypherable for me to understand, consequently to relate. 1822–56De Quincey Confess. (1862) 272 Its cause, its nature, and its undecipherable issue. 1850Grote Greece VIII. 574 In settling the undecipherable portions of the problem. 1876T. Hardy Ethelberta This deep undecipherable habit sometimes suggested..Ethelberta's busy brain to her sisters.
Hence undecipheraˈbility; -ably adv.
1847Webster, Undecipherably. 1881Ruskin Morn. in Florence 35 The whole landscape is quite undecipherably changed and spoiled. 1890Standard 17 Jan. 5/3 Owing to the undecipherability of many of the signatures. |