irrecognizable

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

ir- + recognizable

Adjective

irrecognizable (comparative more irrecognizable, superlative most irrecognizable)

  1. (archaic, rare) Unable to be recognized.[1]
    • 1850, Thomas Carlyle, "The Stump Orator" in Latter Day Pamphlets:
      The immortal gods are there (quite irrecognizable under these disguises), and also the lowest broken valets.
    • 1902, "Judge Endlich on Early Life in Berks," Reading Eagle (USA), 15 March, p. 11 (retrieved 26 Aug. 2010):
      [T]here remains no trace of their having ever existed—outside of course of the family names which are now preserved, though some of them in an almost irrecognizable form.
    • c. 1933, Clark Ashton Smith, "The Light from Beyond" in The White Sybil and Other Stories, p. 142 of 2005 edition:
      The loamy ground on which I lay, the scattered fragments of the cairn beside me, and the rocks and junipers, were irrecognizable as if they had belonged to some other planet than ours.

Synonyms

Derived terms

  • irrecognizability
  • irrecognizably

References

  1. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
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