Unbelievable

How to spell unbelievable

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce unbelievable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unbelievable mean?

1. adjectiveSo surprising, extreme, or implausible that it is difficult to accept as true.

Unbelievable in a sentence

• The repair bill was so high it seemed completely unbelievable.

• After the long delays, the team made unbelievable progress in a single week.

Where does unbelievable come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The heart of this word is 'believe', which descends from Old English 'belyfan' or 'gelyfan', meaning 'to hold dear, to trust, to accept as true', a thoroughly Germanic verb related to the modern German 'glauben' and ultimately tied to a root meaning 'to love' or 'to hold precious'. To this native core English later attached two borrowed pieces: the prefix 'un-', an old Germanic negator meaning simply 'not', and the suffix '-able', which came in through Old French from the Latin '-abilis', meaning 'able to be' or 'worthy of being'. The blend of a native English verb with a Latin-derived ending was a common pattern from the late medieval period onward, and 'unbelievable' itself is recorded from around the seventeenth century. Over time it slid from its literal meaning, 'not able to be believed', into the everyday exaggeration we now use for anything astonishing. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the 'ie' of 'believe' follows the familiar 'i before e' pattern, but writers second-guess it, and the unstressed '-able' is easily mistaken for '-ible'.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• believe (root, to accept as true)
• -able (capable of, worthy of)