illegible
/ɪˈlɛdʒɪb(ə)l
/adjective
Not clear enough to be read: his handwriting is totally illegible...
- Then of course is the corps who are always late, scribble on the back of envelopes, and expect others to read illegible handwriting.
- That done they then had to patiently read almost illegible writing which had eroded over the decades and centuries.
- Each note was wilder, drunker, harder to read, and eventually illegible.
Synonyms
unreadable, indecipherable, unintelligible, hard to read;
scrawled, scribbled, squiggly, crabbed, hieroglyphic, obscure
informal clear as mud
Derivatives
illegibility
/ noun ...- The people who'll grade those essays won't have any time to decipher illegibility.
- The site can do nothing about the levels of error in the originals or the illegibility of some handwritten entries.
- The well-known illegibility of the prescription scripts frequently makes it impossible for a curious patient even to guess at the nature of the medicament.
illegibly
/ adverb ...- People write illegibly or mumble unintelligibly.
- An example is illegibly handwritten orders or lack of communication between primary physician and wound care provider that results in patient injury.
- The last thing a teacher wants to do while correcting mounds of tests is to spend time deciphering what a student has illegibly written.