Inconceivable

How to spell inconceivable

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce inconceivable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inconceivable mean?

1. adjectiveImpossible to imagine, believe, or grasp with the mind.

Inconceivable in a sentence

• It seemed inconceivable that the project could be finished in a single weekend.

• A decade ago, paying for groceries with a phone was almost inconceivable.

Where does inconceivable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb concipere, meaning 'to take in' or 'to grasp', formed from con- 'together' and capere 'to take'. In Latin and later in French the sense moved from physically taking something in to mentally taking in an idea, that is, conceiving it in the mind. English borrowed 'conceive' through Old French during the 1300s, and the negative adjective 'inconceivable' was built on top of it around the 1600s by adding the Latin-derived in- 'not' and the suffix -able 'capable of being'. The literal force is therefore 'not capable of being grasped by the mind'. The same capere root quietly sits inside a crowd of relatives such as receive, perceive and deceive, and they all share the same spelling trap: the -ceive part keeps the e before the i, following the familiar 'i before e except after c' pattern.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• con- (together)
• -ceiv- (from Latin capere: to take/grasp)
• -able (capable of)