"unputdownable" meaning in All languages combined

See unputdownable on Wiktionary

Adjective [English]

IPA: /(ˌ)ʌnpʊtˈdaʊnəb(ə)l/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌənˌpʊtˈdaʊnəb(ə)l/ [General-American] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav [Southern-England] Forms: more unputdownable [comparative], most unputdownable [superlative]
Etymology: From un- + put down + -able. Etymology templates: {{affix|en|un-|put down|-able}} un- + put down + -able Head templates: {{en-adj}} unputdownable (comparative more unputdownable, superlative most unputdownable)
  1. Of a person, etc.: difficult or impossible to put down (in various senses). Tags: informal Translations (difficult or impossible to put down): berxweder (Northern Kurdish), neşkê (Northern Kurdish), xweragir (Northern Kurdish), ne može se ispustiti iz ruku [idiomatic] (Serbo-Croatian)
    Sense id: en-unputdownable-en-adj-a1IOrR7M Categories (other): English terms prefixed with un- Disambiguation of English terms prefixed with un-: 61 39 Disambiguation of 'difficult or impossible to put down': 97 3
  2. (specifically) Of a book or other written work: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it. Tags: informal, specifically Synonyms: page-turning Translations (of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it): käestpandamatu (Estonian), ενδιαφέρων (endiaféron) (Greek), letehetetlen (Hungarian), destjêvenebar (Northern Kurdish), ne može se ispustiti iz ruku [idiomatic, plural] (Serbo-Croatian)
    Sense id: en-unputdownable-en-adj-N7B~PMFj Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English terms suffixed with -able Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 34 66 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -able: 38 62 Disambiguation of 'of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it': 8 92
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: un-put-downable Related terms: page-turner

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for unputdownable meaning in All languages combined (9.1kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "un-",
        "3": "put down",
        "4": "-able"
      },
      "expansion": "un- + put down + -able",
      "name": "affix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From un- + put down + -able.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more unputdownable",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most unputdownable",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "unputdownable (comparative more unputdownable, superlative most unputdownable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "un‧put‧down‧able"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "page-turner"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "61 39",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with un-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1842 June 17, Robert Hull, “On the Division of Medical Labour”, in The London Medical Gazette, being a Weekly Journal of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume II (New Series; volume XXX overall), number 759, London: Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, […], →OCLC, page 474, column 2",
          "text": "I have known an operating surgeon, because he possessed a medical title, to be elected physician to a county hospital. I have known the surgical staff for years refuse to recognize this irregular. Yet, after all, when he became popular and unputdownable, giving in their isolated adhesions to the conqueror, not because they had altered their sentiments, but that their pockets taught them, like nature, to abhor a vacuum.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1861, The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine: An Illustrated Journal, Combining Practical Information, Instruction, and Amusement, London: S[amuel] O[rchart] Beeton, →OCLC, page 303",
          "text": "Finally, we appeal to all right-minded playgoers. Let them remember that they have got tongues, and that a vigorous, unmistakeable, un-put-downable hiss is, in a theatre, a potent instrument.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1985, Antonio Skármeta, translated by Malcolm Coad, I Dreamt the Snow was Burning, London: Readers International, page 60",
          "text": "[W]e're unputdownable, like Alcayaga said up 'til last night, and now here we all are happy, unputdownable, dearest old skinny bosom-buddy, you've collapsed on us so early in the morning like a sack of spuds, [...]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Robert Barnard, Death and the Chaste Apprentice (Collins Crime Club), London: Collins; republished as Death and the Chaste Apprentice, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, 2014",
          "text": "Des Capper blinked, as if he has been hit with a dictionary. But he was unputdownable, at the same time giving the impression that he was registering all the snubs.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991, Andrew Yule, Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga, New York, N.Y.: Applause Books, page 56",
          "text": "Only someone with enormous unputdownable optimism would ever have embarked on a project like this.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Mike Hally, Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age, London: Granta",
          "text": "But she also remembers Phillips as someone who ‘people liked to be a bit scornful of, the kind of man they would like to put down, although he was unputdownable’.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of a person, etc.: difficult or impossible to put down (in various senses)."
      ],
      "id": "en-unputdownable-en-adj-a1IOrR7M",
      "links": [
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ],
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "impossible",
          "impossible"
        ],
        [
          "put down",
          "put down"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3",
          "code": "kmr",
          "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
          "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
          "word": "berxweder"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3",
          "code": "kmr",
          "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
          "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
          "word": "neşkê"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3",
          "code": "kmr",
          "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
          "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
          "word": "xweragir"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "97 3",
          "code": "sh",
          "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
          "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
          "tags": [
            "idiomatic"
          ],
          "word": "ne može se ispustiti iz ruku"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "putdownable"
        },
        {
          "word": "put-downable"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "34 66",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "38 62",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms suffixed with -able",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1947 January 5, Raymond Chandler, “To Charles Morton”, in Frank MacShane, editor, Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, published 1981",
          "text": "I found it absolutely (or almost) unputdownable and at the same time as complete a waste of time in a sense as one of [Erle Stanley] Gardner's Perry Mason stories, which I also find unputdownable.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975, The University of Windsor Review, Windsor, Ont.: University of Windsor Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 14",
          "text": "Now begins the allurement of the ‘unputdownable’ text. But is it unputdownable? The author must spin out and embroider the theme of a demoniacally possessed girl for all that it is worth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990 February 25, Richard Dawkins, “Wonderful Life by Stephen J. Gould [book review]”, in The Sunday Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2005-03-06",
          "text": "To make unputdownable an intricate, technical account of the anatomies of worms, and other inconspicuous denizens of a half-billion-year-old sea, is a literary tour-de-force. But the theory that [Stephen Jay] Gould wrings out of his fossils is a sorry mess.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 November 28, Janet Maslin, “Geneticists gone wild. What’s the world to do?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-01-14",
          "text": "Since \"Next\" is one of Mr. [Michael] Crichton's more un-put-downable novels, the reader may experience some frustration. It's tempting to stop and look up each of the genetic, legal and ethical aberrations described here in order to see how wild a strain of science fiction is afoot. Save a step. Just believe this: Oddity after oddity in \"Next\" checks out, and many are replays of real events.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 January 21, Alan Titchmarsh, “Keeping a diary is hard work”, in The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC",
          "text": "[James] Lees-Milne does not always show himself off in a good light, and he is by turns self-aggrandising, cruel, dismissive, mean-spirited and totally un-put-downable (though there will be occasions when you want to throw his books across the room with some force).",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of a book or other written work: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it."
      ],
      "id": "en-unputdownable-en-adj-N7B~PMFj",
      "links": [
        [
          "book",
          "book#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "written",
          "written#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "captivating",
          "captivating#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "engrossing",
          "engrossing#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "bear",
          "bear#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "stop",
          "stop#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "reading",
          "read#Verb"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(specifically) Of a book or other written work: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "page-turning"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "specifically"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "code": "et",
          "lang": "Estonian",
          "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
          "word": "käestpandamatu"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "endiaféron",
          "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
          "word": "ενδιαφέρων"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
          "word": "letehetetlen"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "code": "kmr",
          "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
          "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
          "word": "destjêvenebar"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "code": "sh",
          "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
          "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
          "tags": [
            "idiomatic",
            "plural"
          ],
          "word": "ne može se ispustiti iz ruku"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/(ˌ)ʌnpʊtˈdaʊnəb(ə)l/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌənˌpʊtˈdaʊnəb(ə)l/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ad/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ad/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Southern-England"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (Southern England)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "un-put-downable"
    }
  ],
  "word": "unputdownable"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English 5-syllable words",
    "English adjectives",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English informal terms",
    "English lemmas",
    "English terms prefixed with un-",
    "English terms suffixed with -able",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "English terms with audio links"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "un-",
        "3": "put down",
        "4": "-able"
      },
      "expansion": "un- + put down + -able",
      "name": "affix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From un- + put down + -able.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more unputdownable",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most unputdownable",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "unputdownable (comparative more unputdownable, superlative most unputdownable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "un‧put‧down‧able"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "page-turner"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1842 June 17, Robert Hull, “On the Division of Medical Labour”, in The London Medical Gazette, being a Weekly Journal of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume II (New Series; volume XXX overall), number 759, London: Printed for Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, […], →OCLC, page 474, column 2",
          "text": "I have known an operating surgeon, because he possessed a medical title, to be elected physician to a county hospital. I have known the surgical staff for years refuse to recognize this irregular. Yet, after all, when he became popular and unputdownable, giving in their isolated adhesions to the conqueror, not because they had altered their sentiments, but that their pockets taught them, like nature, to abhor a vacuum.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1861, The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine: An Illustrated Journal, Combining Practical Information, Instruction, and Amusement, London: S[amuel] O[rchart] Beeton, →OCLC, page 303",
          "text": "Finally, we appeal to all right-minded playgoers. Let them remember that they have got tongues, and that a vigorous, unmistakeable, un-put-downable hiss is, in a theatre, a potent instrument.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1985, Antonio Skármeta, translated by Malcolm Coad, I Dreamt the Snow was Burning, London: Readers International, page 60",
          "text": "[W]e're unputdownable, like Alcayaga said up 'til last night, and now here we all are happy, unputdownable, dearest old skinny bosom-buddy, you've collapsed on us so early in the morning like a sack of spuds, [...]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Robert Barnard, Death and the Chaste Apprentice (Collins Crime Club), London: Collins; republished as Death and the Chaste Apprentice, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, 2014",
          "text": "Des Capper blinked, as if he has been hit with a dictionary. But he was unputdownable, at the same time giving the impression that he was registering all the snubs.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991, Andrew Yule, Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam and the Munchausen Saga, New York, N.Y.: Applause Books, page 56",
          "text": "Only someone with enormous unputdownable optimism would ever have embarked on a project like this.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Mike Hally, Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age, London: Granta",
          "text": "But she also remembers Phillips as someone who ‘people liked to be a bit scornful of, the kind of man they would like to put down, although he was unputdownable’.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of a person, etc.: difficult or impossible to put down (in various senses)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "person",
          "person"
        ],
        [
          "difficult",
          "difficult"
        ],
        [
          "impossible",
          "impossible"
        ],
        [
          "put down",
          "put down"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    },
    {
      "antonyms": [
        {
          "word": "putdownable"
        },
        {
          "word": "put-downable"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1947 January 5, Raymond Chandler, “To Charles Morton”, in Frank MacShane, editor, Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, published 1981",
          "text": "I found it absolutely (or almost) unputdownable and at the same time as complete a waste of time in a sense as one of [Erle Stanley] Gardner's Perry Mason stories, which I also find unputdownable.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975, The University of Windsor Review, Windsor, Ont.: University of Windsor Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 14",
          "text": "Now begins the allurement of the ‘unputdownable’ text. But is it unputdownable? The author must spin out and embroider the theme of a demoniacally possessed girl for all that it is worth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990 February 25, Richard Dawkins, “Wonderful Life by Stephen J. Gould [book review]”, in The Sunday Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2005-03-06",
          "text": "To make unputdownable an intricate, technical account of the anatomies of worms, and other inconspicuous denizens of a half-billion-year-old sea, is a literary tour-de-force. But the theory that [Stephen Jay] Gould wrings out of his fossils is a sorry mess.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 November 28, Janet Maslin, “Geneticists gone wild. What’s the world to do?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2018-01-14",
          "text": "Since \"Next\" is one of Mr. [Michael] Crichton's more un-put-downable novels, the reader may experience some frustration. It's tempting to stop and look up each of the genetic, legal and ethical aberrations described here in order to see how wild a strain of science fiction is afoot. Save a step. Just believe this: Oddity after oddity in \"Next\" checks out, and many are replays of real events.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 January 21, Alan Titchmarsh, “Keeping a diary is hard work”, in The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC",
          "text": "[James] Lees-Milne does not always show himself off in a good light, and he is by turns self-aggrandising, cruel, dismissive, mean-spirited and totally un-put-downable (though there will be occasions when you want to throw his books across the room with some force).",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Of a book or other written work: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "book",
          "book#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "written",
          "written#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "captivating",
          "captivating#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "engrossing",
          "engrossing#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "bear",
          "bear#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "stop",
          "stop#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "reading",
          "read#Verb"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(specifically) Of a book or other written work: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "page-turning"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "specifically"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/(ˌ)ʌnpʊtˈdaʊnəb(ə)l/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌənˌpʊtˈdaʊnəb(ə)l/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ad/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/ad/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Vealhurl-unputdownable.wav.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Southern-England"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (Southern England)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "un-put-downable"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "kmr",
      "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
      "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
      "word": "berxweder"
    },
    {
      "code": "kmr",
      "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
      "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
      "word": "neşkê"
    },
    {
      "code": "kmr",
      "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
      "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
      "word": "xweragir"
    },
    {
      "code": "sh",
      "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
      "sense": "difficult or impossible to put down",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "word": "ne može se ispustiti iz ruku"
    },
    {
      "code": "et",
      "lang": "Estonian",
      "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
      "word": "käestpandamatu"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "endiaféron",
      "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
      "word": "ενδιαφέρων"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
      "word": "letehetetlen"
    },
    {
      "code": "kmr",
      "lang": "Northern Kurdish",
      "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
      "word": "destjêvenebar"
    },
    {
      "code": "sh",
      "lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
      "sense": "of a book, etc.: so captivating or engrossing that one cannot bear to stop reading it",
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "ne može se ispustiti iz ruku"
    }
  ],
  "word": "unputdownable"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.