English Dictionary

INEXPLICABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does inexplicable mean? 

INEXPLICABLE (adjective)
  The adjective INEXPLICABLE has 1 sense:

1. incapable of being explained or accounted forplay

  Familiarity information: INEXPLICABLE used as an adjective is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


INEXPLICABLE (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Incapable of being explained or accounted for

Synonyms:

incomprehensible; inexplicable

Context example:

left the house at three in the morning for inexplicable reasons

Similar:

cryptic; cryptical; deep; inscrutable; mysterious; mystifying (of an obscure nature)

paradoxical; self-contradictory (seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true)

unaccountable; unexplainable (not to be accounted for or explained)

unexplained (having the reason or cause not made clear)

Also:

incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)

insoluble (admitting of no solution or explanation)

Antonym:

explicable (capable of being explicated or accounted for)


 Context examples 


It is really the most extraordinary and inexplicable business.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to myself.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But her pulse, her blood, every fibre of her, loved it and yearned for it, and, in the old, inexplicable way, she leaned toward him, not away from him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was incredible to the surviving mutineers.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Every inquiry in this case reveals something inexplicable.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

This was the telegram which you appear in some inexplicable way to have seen.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen’s blindness. It was inexplicable.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Then he pictured the solidification, the cooling, the wrinkling which formed the mountains, the steam which turned to water, the slow preparation of the stage upon which was to be played the inexplicable drama of life.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"A merry heart makes a long life." (English proverb)

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