Do we say illegible or unreadable

illegible 145 occurrences

is a fair copy of the Defence of Poetry, apparently damaged by sea-water, and illegible in many places.

For the rest, though here and there pages are illegible, and though some symbols, especially those representing numbers or chemical compounds, are absolutely undecipherable, it has been possible to effect what I hope will be found a clear and coherent translation.

Um Gottes willen" It straggled off, illegible.

that lantern-jawed countenance of a droll, with its heavy, black, eloquent eyebrows, its high and narrow forehead merging into an extensive bald spot fringed with greyish hair, its rather small, blue, illegible eyes, its high-bridged nose and prominent nostrils, its wide and thin-lipped mouth, its rather startling pallor.

What Goethe says about the most legible handwriting being illegible in the twilight, is doubtless true; and should be oftener borne in mind by frivolous objectors, who declare they do not understand this or do not admire that, as if their want of taste and understanding were rather creditable than otherwise, and were decisive proofs of an author's insignificance.

Pencil marks blur badly and become illegible in a few months.

This injunction ought to be superfluous, for common sense tells us that writing which is illegible cannot be read even by the writer, once it has "grown cold."

[Transcriber's Note: Illegible] upon any person who has not obtained copyright who shall insert the notice "Entered according to act of Congress," or "Copyright," or words of the same import, in or upon any book or other article.

It has become somewhat illegible and obscure from repeated folding and unfolding.

[TR: Illegible]

" [Transcribers note *: illegible] ROBERT NICOL.

Two of them bore nothing but the date line, made illegible, it would seem, by the writer's haste and nervousness.

Illegible words either scribbled on scraps of paper or sent as distorted faxed messages were among the most popular methods deployed to communicate their reports.

The most surprising form of this experiment is when we use a coin from which the inscription has been either wholly obliterated, or obliterated in such a degree as to be illegible.

When such a coin is laid upon the red hot iron, the letters and figures become oxidated, and the film of oxide radiating more powerfully than the rest of the coin will be more luminous than the rest of the coin, and the illegible inscription may be now distinctly read to the great surprise of the observer, who had examined the blank surface of the coin previous to its being placed upon the hot iron.

She looked at the book that he held open before her, and perceived that its vertical ruling betokened a sordid import, that its list of items in an illegible mixture of English and German was lengthy.

A feverish sort of life is led here day and night, as deficient addresses must be completed, and the illegible ones deciphered.

if you prepare a slate the doctor will give you a message on it in his own handwrite and one characteristic of him ESW (In a small, rather illegible hand.)

The last words were somewhat illegible, and Mrs. Patterson suggested another trial; she thought the Spirits would write it plainer.

In several places there were mere evidences of words, now entirely illegible.

They are fast becoming illegible, worn out by the rain that raineth every day, and our prim, present-day parsons do not look with favour upon them, besides whichto use a clumsy phrasebesides which most of our churchyards are now closed against burials, and without texts there can be no sermons: 'I'll stay and read my sermon here, And skulls and bones shall be my text.

It was so badly worn that it was almost illegible, but it showed a picture of Mama Duck and below it was given her age, 109.

First, the parapet has an almost illegible inscription, ANTONIVS.

Miss Edith possessed an acuteness of perception which enabled her to decipher almost illegible words by comparing them with others which were better written.

[Footnote 1: Word here illegible.

unreadable 28 occurrences

Telegrams [unreadable] Telephone Mayfair 4707 B.R.C.S. or Order of St. John ... Sir, Will you kindly fill up the following form of Medical Certificate, returning it to the address given above.

It is distinctly ascertained that she expressly prohibited him from doing so; they continued to correspond to the last, and her affectionate, though unreadable, reminiscences, are sufficient proof that she at no time considered herself to be neglected, injured, or aggrieved.

" Jacobs, in his "Lives of the Poets," speaks of him as a multifarious writer of unreadable trash,and names but few of his productions.

There is something genuine, honest, gentlemanly, and unreadable in him.

He had studied the face of the big man from up north all during the scene, and he found the stern features unreadable.

In this term I accomplished the preparation of a volume of Mathematical Tracts on subjects which, either from their absolute deficiency in the University or from the unreadable form in which they had been presented, appeared to be wanted.

They were unreadable and produced no effect.

He remembered how her ladyship's grandson had compared her with the Sphinx; and it seemed to him to-night, as he studied her proud and tranquil beauty, that there was indeed something of the mysterious, the unreadable in that countenance, and that beneath its heroic calm there might be the ashes of tragic passion, the traces of a life-long struggle with fate.

He was, however, a man of some talent, though his poems are now hopelessly unreadable, and seems to have had a singular attraction for Johnson.

No other excuse at least can be given for the composition of one of the heaviest and most unreadable of dramatic performances, interesting now, if interesting at all, solely as a curious example of the result of bestowing great powers upon a totally uncongenial task.

The militarist monomania of Germany will have become incomprehensible; her Welt Politik literature incredible and unreadable....

He introduced the Pindaric ode into English, and wrote an epic poem on a biblical subjectthe Davideisnow quite unreadable.

Were there only a compensatory arrangement for this also in another class who should be driven by a like irresistible instinct to unreadable books, the heart of the political economist would be gladdened at seeing the substantial rewards of authorship so much more equally distributed by means of a demand adapted to the always abundant supply.

No wonder he stormed, for the impossible had been made not only consistent, but unreadable.

It is startling to find Mill's Logic described (1843) as a "great unreadable book, and its elaborate demonstration of axioms and truisms."

Sir James Stephenthe distinguished sire of two distinguished contributors, who may remind more than one editor of our generation of the Horatian saying, that "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis, ... neque imbellera feroces Progenerant aquilae columbam" this excellent writer took a more just measure of the book which Jeffrey thought unreadable.

[Footnote 1: "(unreadable on original page) in Dryden's 'Conquest of Granada.'

He therefore sent off one of his men to him with a letter, written in almost unreadable German, to the effect that if he would come to Altenburg and resume command of the band which had gathered there from the remnants of his former troops who had been dispersed, he, Nagelschmidt, was ready to assist him to escape from his imprisonment in Dresden by furnishing him with horses, men, and money.

" Valencia's angry eyes questioned the unreadable ones of his majordomo; but he did not let go, and so the three stood for a moment longer.

Waring's eyes were unreadable.

In the glow of the hanging lamp, Starr's lined, grizzled features were as unreadable as carved bronze.

" Bondsman knew that she proffered sympathy, and he licked her hand lazily, gazing up at her with bright, unreadable eyes.

As a young manand it is to his earlier years that the bulk of the eclogues must be attributedSpagnuoli was noted for the elegance of his Latin verse; but his facility led him into over-production, and Tiraboschi reports his later writings as absolutely unreadable.

What is the good of reminding them, being so majestical, of Guizot's pertinent remark, 'that if a book is unreadable it will not be read,' or of the older saying, 'A great book is a great evil'?

The style of newspaper reporters is not without merit; it is very rarely unreadable; but for all its virtue it is rarely a well of English undefiled.

Do we say   illegible   or  unreadable