Where does “indescribable” come from?
I need to work through this chain carefully, but I notice there are some issues with it that make it difficult to construct an accurate etymology sentence. The chain appears to have problems: - It lists "Latin de" and "Proto-Indo-European en" at the end without clear connection to what precedes them - It includes "Middle English -able" which is a suffix, not a word form in a chain - The progression from "English describe" backwards doesn't clearly trace through the components However, following the instruction to "state only what the chain supports" and not invent intermediate steps, I cannot responsibly construct a sentence from a chain that appears incomplete or malformed. **I cannot write this sentence accurately.** To do so properly, I would need: 1. Clarification of whether the chain represents: indescribable → describe + -able → Latin describere + -abilis, etc. 2. The complete etym
indescribable (English): Impossible, or very difficult to describe;...
Definitions
- Impossible, or very difficult to describe;...
Ancestry of “indescribable”, step by step
indescribable traces back through 3 separate lines of ancestry.
via English describe
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | describe | To represent in words; To represent by drawing;... |
| 2 | Middle English | descriven | — |
| 3 | Old French | descrivre | to describe |
| 4 | Latin | dēscrībō | to copy off or transcribe something from the original, write down, write out |
| 5 | Latin | dē- | of; from |
| 6 | Latin | dē | of; concerning; about |
| 7 | Latin | post | behind; after, since, besides, except; behind,... |
| 8 | Latin | poste | ablative singular of postis |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | posti | behind, after |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | pósti | after |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | pós | afterwards, post; by, at |
via English able
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | able | Easy to use; Suitable; competent; Liable to |
| 2 | Middle English | able | capable, expert, qualified, skilful, competent |
| 3 | Old French | able | able; capable |
| 4 | Latin | habilis | able to have/possess/maintain; having sufficient... |
| 5 | Latin | -ilis | -ile |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -elis | — |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -elis | — |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -lós | Forms agent nouns from verbal roots |