unquantifiableadj.n.
/(ˌ)ʌnˈkwɒntᵻfʌɪəbl/, /(ˌ)ʌŋˈkwɒntᵻfʌɪəbl/, U.S. /ˌənˈkwɑn(t)əˌfaɪəb(ə)l/ A. adj.
Not quantifiable.
ΚΠ
1890 A. C. Fraser Locke 147 We are as remote from the unquantifiable infinite..as we were at the beginning of the process.
1935 Jrnl. Inst. Actuaries 66 387 The rate of estate duty should be taken without allowance for aggregation, leaving the risk of aggregation as an unquantifiable general risk.
1965 Times Lit. Suppl. 18 Nov. 1/3 Ashamed to display an old-fashioned interest in the unquantifiable.
2012 Daily Post (N. Wales) (Nexis) 23 July 8 Private investors face difficult choices and potentially unquantifiable risks, with no clear idea of future profit margins.
B. n.
With the: that which cannot be quantified. Also as a count noun: a thing which cannot be quantified.
ΚΠ
1890 A. C. Fraser Locke 147 The idea of the unquantifiable is ‘suggested’ by the positive ideas of spaces and times which we have had in our sense experience.
1965 Technol. & Culture 6 154 When he quantifies such unquantifiables as ‘military value’, this reader rebels.
1998 Design Issues 14 40 (title) Quantifying the unquantifiable: an inquiry into the design process.
2006 N.Y. Mag. 1 May 127 The rest of the value is locked in with the unquantifiables—the buzz, the virality, the self-perpetuating magic.
Derivatives
unquantifˈiably adv.
ΚΠ
1962 Bull. Brit. Museum (Nat. Hist.), Zool. 8 161 Several other geographical regions have the same vaguely and unquantifiably distinct populations.
2013 Guardian (Nexis) 9 Mar. 50 Sometimes the damage is small. Sometimes it is almost unquantifiably vast.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2014; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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adj.n.1890