ineffable

/ˌɪnˈɛf.ə.bəl/adjective, noun

ineffable is spelled I-N-E-F-F-A-B-L-E: 9 letters and 4 syllables. It appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,714th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, ineffable means “Beyond expression in words; unspeakable” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in ineffable?

Letters	9: I-N-E-F-F-A-B-L-E
Syllables	4 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing	about once in every 4 million words; the 58,714th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is ineffable?

Ineffable appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,714th most frequent word form in the list.

ineffable0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce ineffable?

UK /ɪˈnɛf.ə.bəl/
US /ˌɪnˈɛf.ə.bəl/

Ineffable has 4 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-ineffable.ogg, En-au-ineffable.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of ineffable

ineffables plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does ineffable mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

1
Beyond expression in words; unspeakable.
2
Forbidden to be uttered; taboo.

noun

1
Something that is beyond utterance; something unspeakable.