uncountable

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English

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Etymology

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From un- ‎ countable.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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uncountable (not comparable)

  1. So many as to be incapable of being counted.
    The reasons for our failure were as uncountable as the grains of sand on a beach.
  2. (mathematics) Incapable of being put into one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers or any subset thereof.
    Cantor’s “diagonal proof” shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable.
  3. (grammar, of a noun) That cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and therefore usually takes no plural form. Example: information.
    Many languages do not distinguish countable nouns from uncountable nouns.
    One meaning in law of the usually uncountable noun "information" is used in the plural and is countable.

Synonyms

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Antonyms

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Hypernyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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uncountable (plural uncountables)

  1. (grammar) An uncountable noun.
    • 1988, Anna Wierzbicka, The Semantics of Grammar, page 440:
      But inherent uncountables such as 'stuffs' can be conceptualized in two different ways, depending on whether they are viewed in terms of quantity or in terms of quality.

See also

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