different between monstrous vs unspeakable

English

Etymology

From Middle English monstrous, from Old French monstrueuse, monstrüos, from Latin m?nstr?sus. Compare monstruous.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m?nst??s/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?nst??s/
• Hyphenation: mon?strous

Adjective

monstrous (comparative more monstrous, superlative most monstrous)

1. Hideous or frightful.
2. Enormously large.

   a monstrous height
3. Freakish or grotesque.

   • The irregular and monstrous births

   • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The rule and exercises of holy living

     He, therefore, that refuses to do good to them whom he is bound to love […] is unnatural and monstrous in his affections.

4. Of, or relating to a mythical monster; full of monsters.
5. (obsolete) Marvellous; exceedingly strange; fantastical.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:gigantic

Translations

Middle English

Adjective

monstrous

1. Alternative form of monstruous

English

Etymology

From Middle English unspekable, equivalent to un- +? speakable.

Pronunciation

Adjective

unspeakable (comparative more unspeakable, superlative most unspeakable)

1. Incapable of being spoken or uttered

   Synonyms: unutterable, ineffable, inexpressible

   • 1855-1882, Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, book xv,

     The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joys and sorrows.

2. Unfit or not permitted to be spoken or described.
   • 1916, James Joyce, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, ch. 3,

     The miser will remember his hoard of gold, the robber his ill-gotten wealth, the angry and revengeful and merciless murderers their deeds of blood and violence in which they revelled, the impure and adulterous the unspeakable and filthy pleasures in which they delighted.

3. Extremely bad or objectionable.

   an unspeakable fool

   an unspeakable play

   • 1926, H.P. Lovecraft, The Outsider,

     Yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty on the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:indescribable

Derived terms

• unspeakably
• unspeakableness

Translations

References

• unspeakable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “unspeakable” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "unspeakable" in the Wordsmyth Dictionary-Thesaurus (Wordsmyth, 2002)
• "unspeakable" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• “unspeakable”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• "unspeakable" at Rhymezone (Datamuse, 2006).
• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)

Scots

Etymology

un- +? speak +? -able

Adjective

unspeakable (comparative mair unspeakable, superlative maist unspeakable)

1. unspeakable