untranslatableadj.
/ˌʌntransˈleɪtəbl/, /ˌʌntrɑːnsˈleɪtəbl/, /ˌʌntranzˈleɪtəbl/, /ˌʌntrɑːnzˈleɪtəbl/, U.S. /ˌənˌtræn(t)sˈleɪdəb(ə)l/, /ˌənˌtrænzˈleɪdəb(ə)l/ (un- prefix1 1b) Very common from the beginning of the 19th cent.
ΚΠ
1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. v. 239 Some few [words] untranslatable, without losse of life or lustre.
1685 tr. B. Gracián y Morales Courtiers Oracle A3 The French Authour..accounts him unintelligible, and by consequent untranslateable.
1742 T. Gray Let. 8 Apr. in Corr (1971) I. 193 Pray put me the following lines into the tongue of our modern Dramatics:..To me they appear untranslatable.
1811 S. T. Coleridge Table-talk (1835) II. 353 The excellence of verse, he said, was to be untranslatable into any other words.
1880 T. Hodgkin Italy & her Invaders I. i. ii. 193 The untranslateable grandeur of Claudian's epithet.
Derivatives
untransˈlatableness n.
ΚΠ
1817 S. T. Coleridge Biographia Literaria II. 160 The infallible test of a blameless style; namely, its untranslatableness in words of the same language without injury to the meaning.
untransˈlatably adv.
ΚΠ
1855 E. Smedley et al. Occult Sci. 250 Concerning dreams—ut de accentibus somni—as he untranslatably styles them.
1889 Athenæum 16 Nov. 671/1 The ugly proceedings untranslatably known as brique.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1926; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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adj.1655