Intangible

How to spell intangible

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce intangible

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intangible mean?

1. adjectiveUnable to be touched or grasped physically; existing only as a quality, feeling, or idea.
2. nounSomething of value that has no physical form, such as a patent, trademark, or goodwill.

Intangible in a sentence

• adjective

  Trust between colleagues is intangible yet vital to a team.

• noun

  The accountant listed each intangible separately from the company's equipment.

• adjective

  The old hotel had an intangible charm that guests struggled to describe.

• noun

  A strong customer base is an intangible that buyers will pay a premium for.

Where does intangible come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb tangere, which simply meant 'to touch'. From that root Latin built the adjective intangibilis, combining the negative prefix in- ('not') with the idea of touching, so the literal sense was 'that cannot be touched'. English adopted it in the early 1600s, partly through French, to describe things real enough to matter yet impossible to grasp with the hands, such as goodwill, reputation, or atmosphere. The very same tangere root surfaces in a whole family of relatives, including 'tangent' (a line that just touches a curve), 'contact', and 'tangible' itself, which is the positive opposite. Remembering that hidden 'tang' meaning 'touch' is the key to the spelling: it is not 'inten-' but in-tang-ible, the thing you cannot lay a finger on.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• tang (touch, from Latin tangere)
• -ible (able to be)