un-unravelable
English
Etymology
un- + unravelable
Adjective
un-unravelable (comparative more un-unravelable, superlative most un-unravelable)
- (rare) That cannot be unravelled; by extension, difficult to understand.
- 2000, Martin Samuel Cohen, book review, Conservative Judaism, Volume 53, Number 1, Fall 2000, page 92:
- Indeed, most moderns who know Luria's work only from secondary sources would be completely flummoxed to encounter the texts themselves with their endlessly arcane numerology, almost indescribably peculiar eroticism and byzantine, almost un-unravelable mythology.
- 2009, Bill Prady and Lee Aronsohn, "The Loobenfeld Decay", episode 1-10 of The Big Bang Theory, 00:08:25-00:08:35:
- Sheldon Cooper: Well, first of all, your lie was laughably transparent, where mine is exquisitely convoluted. While you were sleeping, I was weaving an un-unravelable web.
- Sheldon Cooper: Well, first of all, your lie was laughably transparent, where mine is exquisitely convoluted. While you were sleeping, I was weaving an un-unravelable web.
- 2012 October 1, Nadegda [username], “NOMINATION: The Revd, The Peeler, NoSpamAtAll, Michael Ejercito, brian lamb, and An tSin Gorm collectively for a Laki Volcano Award.”, in alt.usenet.kooks, Usenet:
- NOMINATION: The Revd, The Peeler, NoSpamAtAll, Michael Ejercito, brian lamb, and An tSin Gorm collectively for a Laki Volcano Award for paving over soc.culture.israel and AUK with some sort of un-unravelable N-way kookfeud.
- For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:un-unravelable.
- 2000, Martin Samuel Cohen, book review, Conservative Judaism, Volume 53, Number 1, Fall 2000, page 92:
Usage notes
Usage of this term as an antonym of unravelable over the simpler and more immediately logical choice ravelable is explained by the fact that ravel is a contranym which can mean either "to entangle" or "to pull apart." Hence, ravelable could mean either "capable of being woven/entangled" or "capable of being pulled apart/unravelled."
Synonyms
- (difficult to understand): unfathomable
Antonyms
- unravelable