How to Use unmentionable in a Sentence

unmentionable

1 of 2 adjective
  • There are certain topics that are considered to be unmentionable.
  • There were no further updates, so the unmentionable crime wave appeared to have been thwarted.
    David Reamer, Anchorage Daily News, 6 Feb. 2022
  • But that feeling of yearning and loss cannot erase family histories of unmentionable crimes.
    Michael Gorra, Star Tribune, 28 Aug. 2020
  • Essentially, that’s telling the basketball gods to go do unmentionable things to themselves.
    Gordon Monson, The Salt Lake Tribune, 23 Feb. 2021
  • And as these details were either boring or unmentionable (as in your case and mine), their interest was gratified by fantasies.
    David Mamet, National Review, 31 Mar. 2022
  • As swearing functions as a complex signal, subtle enough either to amuse or to offend, these words vary according to what a culture deems unmentionable.
    The Economist, 25 Jan. 2018
  • Then, if a feet-first entry is inevitable, the most important piece of advice, for reasons both unmentionable and easily understood, is to clench your butt.
    Dan Koeppel, Popular Mechanics, 14 Feb. 2021
  • Think also about the people who had to take care of them, who were wiping up all of the various unmentionable bodily liquids and excretions during that long, slow process.
    Kevin Dickinson, Big Think, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Music aside, 2020 brought on a suffering of unmentionable cruelties that shattered my heart.
    George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Mar. 2021
  • There are also a couple of hints that the fate of Europe’s Jews is part of the prevailing atmosphere of unmentionable moral contagion.
    Christopher Tayler, Harpers Magazine, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Under Trump, climate change and global warming have become almost unmentionable, even to the point of denial, and Pompeo used neither term in his speech.
    Neil Shea, National Geographic, 8 May 2019
  • Many members of the underground faded from memory or became unmentionable, having wasted away in colonial prison cells or been killed in anti-colonial infighting.
    Thomas Meaney, The New Yorker, 10 May 2021
  • Talking makes the unmentionable mentionable.
    Richard Balkin, The Conversation, 26 Jan. 2026
  • That the rest of pop—not to mention the rest of hip-hop—remains of an unmentionable tier, except maybe for Bob Dylan, who won a special citation from the Pulitzers in 2008.
    Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 17 Apr. 2018
  • Suffice it to say that the movie’s richness of drama and texture enables the thematic essence and emotional power of its unmentionable twists to run through the film in its entirety, energizing even less surprising but no less affecting details.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 27 Dec. 2021
  • Those small kindnesses were given in exchange for women staying in a kind of straightjacket of femininity—female pleasure was unmentionable, queerness was forbidden, and there was almost no recourse for rape and harassment.
    Jenny Singer, Glamour, 3 May 2021
  • Anything unconventional or exotic is discomfiting, maybe unseemly, confusing, and (most crucially) unmentionable.
    Gemma Sieff, Harper’s Magazine , 4 Jan. 2022
  • Like that other unmentionable, death, money has, over the past generation, been increasingly sanitized and technologized, abstracted from the complex and often messy realities of interpersonal relationships.
    Daniel Mendelsohn, Town & Country, 4 Nov. 2016

unmentionable

2 of 2 noun
  • Dirt, dust, pet hair, and more unmentionables that end up on your floors are no match for the best cordless vacuums on Amazon.
    Blake Bakkila, Architectural Digest, 12 June 2026
  • Made in the shade Stave off wrinkles and other unmentionables by taking a break from the sun and getting a spray-tan instead.
    Kai Oliver-Kurtin, Pacific San Diego Magazine, 2 June 2017
  • Perfect sized to hide unsightly rolls of toilet paper or any other unmentionables.
    The Editors At House Beautiful, House Beautiful, 18 Nov. 2013
  • And think, if a TSA agent is looking through your luggage, your unmentionables won’t be on full display.
    Carin Ryan, Travel + Leisure, 1 Dec. 2025
  • But just for future reference, Mahomes — they’re called unmentionables for a reason.
    Chuck Schilken, Los Angeles Times, 14 Nov. 2023
  • Started in 2021, the festival has become famous for its naked lap, during which attendees disrobe and ski a run with their unmentionables to the wind.
    Tiney Ricciardi, Denver Post, 26 Mar. 2026
  • This novel presentation unveils myths about women's unmentionables.
    Lake County News-Sun, 16 Jan. 2018
  • These three apartments offer renters the coveted ability to wash their unmentionables without scrounging for quarters or passive-aggressively trading notes about neighbors in a communal laundry room.
    Shannon Rooney, Philly.com, 11 July 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'unmentionable.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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