different between unintelligible vs cacography

English

Etymology

un- +? intelligible.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n?n?t?l?d??b?l/

Adjective

unintelligible (comparative more unintelligible, superlative most unintelligible)

1. Not intelligible; unable to be understood.
   • 1697, John Locke, Letter to the Bishop of Worcester (second reply):

     And indeed, my lord, there are so many passages in your writing in this controversy with me, which for their construction, as well as otherwise, are so unintelligible to me, that if I should be so unmannerly as to measure your understanding by mine, I should not know what to think of them.

Synonyms

• inscrutable, unexplainable; See also Thesaurus:incomprehensible

Antonyms

• intelligible; See also Thesaurus:comprehensible

Translations

See also

• incomprehensible
• unfathomable
• fathomless

English

Alternative forms

• kakography

Etymology

From caco- +? -graphy, perhaps after Middle French cacographie.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ka?k????fi/
• Rhymes: -????fi

Noun

cacography (countable and uncountable, plural cacographies)

1. Bad spelling or punctuation, especially unintuitive spellings considered as a feature of a whole language or dialect. [from 16th c.]
   • 1846, Gabriel Surenne, A Practical Grammar of French Rhetoric, IV.4.1:

     A phrase exhibits proofs of cacography, when the accents are misplaced, forgotten, or used erroneously.

   • 1999, Jack Schofield, The Guardian, 25 Feb 1999:

     In 1997, two American entrepreneurs, Robert Hoffer and Timothy Kay, formed a company called Typo.net to try to profit from Web surfers' cacography.
2. Poor or illegible handwriting. [from 17th c.]
   • 1904, John Rexford, What Handwriting Indicates, pp. 90-91:

     Many illegible letters is the sign of disorder, and the illegibility of Greeley's cacography has furnished numberless anecdotes.

   • 2002, Mil Millington, The Guardian, 29 Jun 2002:

     Germans write a "1" so it's easy to confuse it with a "7": mathematics and cacography can leave Margret and I not speaking to each other for a week.

Antonyms

• (poor spelling system): orthography
• (poor handwriting): calligraphy

Derived terms

• cacographer
• cacographic
• cacographical

Translations

See also

• illegible
• indecipherable
• indistinct
• obscure
• scrawled
• unclear
• undecipherable
• unreadable