| 释义 |
undiˈstinguishable, a.
[un-1 7 b and 5 b.]
1. Incapable of being made out or discerned; imperceptible.
1590Shakes. Mids. N. ii. i. 100 The queint Mazes in the wanton greene, For lacke of tread are vndistinguishable. 1645Milton Tetrach. 19 The Form by which the thing is what it is, is oft so slender and undistinguishable. 1768H. Walpole Hist. Doubts 92 One does not learn any language..with a good, nay, undistinguishable accent, between Christmas and Easter. 1816Scott Old Mort. xxxvi, The city and port..became undistinguishable in the distance. 1872Black Adv. Phaeton xii. 171 Two almost undistinguishable figures pacing along.
2. Incapable of being distinguished or discriminated; of which the different elements cannot be distinguished or recognized; inseparably alike.
1679Dryden Troil. & Cress. Pref. ⁋26 It has been prov'd already that confus'd passions make undistinguishable characters. 1693Humours Town 128 Drunken Rakes, and dirty Beau's,..besides a number of undistinguishable Mob. 1794T. Gisborne Walks Forest iii. 9 Where sunk the parting orb, and with the sky In undistinguishable splendor join'd. 1802–12Bentham Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827) V. 662 Hope and fear..run into one another and are undistinguishable. 1860Pusey Min. Proph. 124 The locust [-swarm]..becomes in a few hours one undistinguishable, putrifying, heaving mass.
b. Const. from. (Common in recent use.)
1686Plot Staffordsh. 380 Altogether undistinguishable from the best French wines. 1833–4J. Phillips Geol. in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VI. 674/2 The badger (probably undistinguishable from the common European species). 1870J. H. Newman Gram. Assent i. v. 112 That apprehension..may become almost undistinguishable from an inferential acceptance of the great truth.
†3. Indiscriminate. Obs. rare.
1702Eng. Theophrast. 86 An undistinguishable Facility shall never fail of meeting with an undistinguishable Infidelity.
Hence undiˈstinguishableness.
1727Bailey (vol. II). 1843Mill Logic i. iii. §11. 93 Resemblance, when it exists in the highest degree of all, amounting to undistinguishableness, is often called identity. 1878E. White Life in Christ (ed. 3) iii. xx. 289 The undistinguishableness of generic difference in character. |