unfalsifiable

U1N1F4A1L1S1I1F4I1A1B3L1E1

adjective

Not able to be proven false, but not necessarily true.

“Conspiracy theories are designed to be unfalsifiable: every criticism can be dismissed as "whitewashing by the conspirers", and every concern can be summarized as "part of the greater conspiracy".”

Scrabble 21

Meanings

adjectiveunfalsifiable (not comparable)
  1. not comparableNot able to be proven false, but not necessarily true.

    Conspiracy theories are designed to be unfalsifiable: every criticism can be dismissed as "whitewashing by the conspirers", and every concern can be summarized as "part of the greater conspiracy".

    2 more examples

    Popper introduced the so-called ‘demarcation problem’ of identifying what distinguishes pseudoscience from science. Popper's suggestion, as I explain below, is that, unlike real science, pseudoscience is unfalsifiable.

    2019, Kevin McCain, Kostas Kampourakis, editors, What is Scientific Knowledge?, Routledge, →ISBN

    Unfalsifiability: The main problem with any particular conspiracy theory is not that it's wrong, but that it's inarguable; not that it's false, but that it is unfalsifiable.

    2020, Maj Dr. Ebenezer Kwakye Agyemang (Rtd), DECODING 2019 NOVEL CORONAVIRUS: Outbreak: Conspiracies: Impact, page 153

    Synonyms: undisprovable · Antonyms: falsifiable, disprovable

noununfalsifiable (plural unfalsifiables)

plural unfalsifiables

  1. A statement or argument that cannot be proven false, but is not necessarily true.

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectiveNot able to be proven false, but not necessarily true.

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*né
  2. Proto-Indo-European*n̥-
  3. Proto-Germanic*un-
  4. Proto-West Germanic*un-
  5. Old Englishun-
  6. Middle Englishun-
  7. Englishun-
  8. Englishfalsify
  9. Englishfalsifiable
  10. Englishunfalsifiable

From un- + falsifiable.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

unfalsifiable. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unfalsifiable

MLA

“unfalsifiable.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unfalsifiable. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unfalsifiable,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unfalsifiable.

Source: unfalsifiable on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.