Meanings
- not comparableNot printable; obscene, or unable to be displayed textually.
Once a neighbor complained that a Gilbreth had called the neighbor's boy a son of an unprintable word.
1949, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr.; Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Cheaper by the Dozen1 more example
"There was poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message: 'The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favor if he would do them the honor to come to their next meeting.' The answer was unprintable." "You don't say?" "Well, a bowdlerized version of it would run: 'Professor Challenger presents his compliments to the President of the Zoological Institute, and would take it as a personal favor if he would go to the devil.'"
1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
plural unprintables
- Something that is not printable.
LabVIEW will interpret one- or two-character codes following the backslash character, as shown in Table 2.1. You can also enter unprintables by simply typing them into the string.
2019, Richard Jennings, LabVIEW Graphical Programming, Fifth Edition, page 91
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveunfit for print because morally or legally objectionable or offensive to good taste
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*né
- Proto-Indo-European*n̥-
- Proto-Germanic*un-
- Proto-West Germanic*un-
- Old Englishun-
- Middle Englishun-
- Englishun-
- Englishprint
- Englishprintable
- Englishunprintable
Translations
Finnish painokelvoton
- painokelvotonnot printable
French inimprimable
- inimprimablenot printable
Hungarian nem nyomtatható, nyomdafestéket nem tűrő
- nem nyomtathatónot printable
- nyomdafestéket nem tűrőnot printable
Norwegian uprentelig
- uprentelignot printable
Polish niedrukowalny
- niedrukowalnynot printable
Scottish Gaelic do-chlò-bhualaidh
- do-chlò-bhualaidhnot printable
Cite this entry
unprintable. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unprintable
“unprintable.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unprintable. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unprintable,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unprintable.
Source: unprintable on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.