- 1
When a feeling, quality, or look is indefinable, you can tell it is there, but you cannot put it into clean words. You know something is strange, or warm, or sad, yet if someone asks "what exactly?", your mouth goes empty. People reach for this word when the thing sits just past language: a smell that pulls you home, a face that is beautiful in a way you cannot name, a mood in a room after bad news. It does not mean "not real" and it does not mean "I have no idea at all." It means "I can feel it; I just cannot pin it down." You will not hear it much in everyday chat. It lives in books, reviews, and careful talk. Though actually, writers also stretch it: sometimes indefinable is only a fancy way to say vague, when they have not done the work of looking harder.
難以名狀的、說不清楚的
組成in- (not) + definable (able to be given a clear meaning). So: not able to be defined.
同家族的字
- definablethe yes-form: this one can be given a clear meaning
- definethe verb at the root: to say clearly what something is
- definitionthe noun: the clear meaning you give a word
- indefinablythe adverb: in a way you cannot put into words
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
indefinableadj
- 1
That which cannot be precisely defined or put into words.
- They apparently have a theory that the indefinable psychic gift that they call magic, and which we might designate "psychicism", can be acquired by accosting the soul of a murdered man in a burial ground at midnight.
- 2
That which defies description; indescribable.
indefinablenoun
- 1
Anything that cannot be defined.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。