Not clear enough to be read; unreadable; not legible or decipherable.
Used in a Sentence
illegible
Definition, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for illegible.
Editorial note
A doctor's handwriting can be illegible to everyone but the doctor, and not be a contradiction to the definition of illegible.
Examples16
Definitions1
Parts of speech1
Quick take
Not clear enough to be read; unreadable; not legible or decipherable.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of illegible gathered in one view.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for illegible.
adjective
Not clear enough to be read; unreadable; not legible or decipherable.
See also: dirty, foul, indecipherable, unclear, undecipherable
Example sentences
A doctor's handwriting can be illegible to everyone but the doctor, and not be a contradiction to the definition of illegible.
The scrolling is broken and the font is illegible on my screen.
> it is by definition not illegible illegible, adjective: not clear enough to read.
You might not be able to read it, but others can, so it is by definition not illegible.
It's not uncommon for form fields to be illegible on one or more of them, layout is different, readability is different.
On the right monitor and brightness, it's fine; on the wrong one, it's illegible.
This just makes JavaScript illegible, and adds a negligible number of new features.
If there is a potential for your font to render with sections being only fractions of pixels thick, you get a very illegible result.
I'm not saying the illegible garish mess that McD's has for a menu is the wrong thing for them, but I do see why more footprint-growth-focused chains don't have that.
No wonder so many people were illiterate, their texts were illegible.
No browser stutters, no illegible headlines, no confusing 1920x1080px images.
It's definitely supposed to be confusing and illegible as far as I can tell.
Quote examples
If someone posts more than two lines of practically any curly-brace language as one line, it's illegible." "...you can pull it into an editor...
A "cozy" distance on one display become irritatingly illegible on another.
"Indention language", on the other hand, has actually lost its meaning and therefore is illegible.
(My humble works[1]) Are the great Chinese calligraphers "missing the point" of the poems in their works when the resulting script is illegible to most?
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use illegible in a sentence?
A doctor's handwriting can be illegible to everyone but the doctor, and not be a contradiction to the definition of illegible.
What does illegible mean?
Not clear enough to be read; unreadable; not legible or decipherable.
What part of speech is illegible?
illegible is commonly used as adjective.