1
as in mysterious
being beyond one's powers to know, understand, or explain
the many inscrutable beliefs of that ancient religion
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in ambiguous
having an often intentionally veiled or uncertain meaning
ancient oracles typically uttered inscrutable prophecies that could be interpreted almost any way one chose
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of inscrutable
In my fiction, my grandfather was no longer an inscrutable ghost, but a character with definable flaws, who did things in an order that, despite whatever twists and subversions, resolved into meaning.
—
Literary Hub,
10 June 2026
The inscrutable inside jokes and references to the history of us.
—
Josh Weiss,
Forbes.com,
9 June 2026
Something inscrutable flashes behind those keen hazel eyes.
—
Shyla Watson,
PEOPLE,
5 June 2026
The unavoidable comparison here is with Pelé, sporting excellence personified but also inscrutable, even a little remote.
—
Jack Lang,
New York Times,
28 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for inscrutable
Literary Hub,
10 June 2026
The inscrutable inside jokes and references to the history of us.
—
Josh Weiss,
Forbes.com,
9 June 2026
Something inscrutable flashes behind those keen hazel eyes.
—
Shyla Watson,
PEOPLE,
5 June 2026
The unavoidable comparison here is with Pelé, sporting excellence personified but also inscrutable, even a little remote.
—
Jack Lang,
New York Times,
28 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for inscrutable
Recent Examples of Synonyms for inscrutable
Adjective
-
Beulah's spurned heir Joaquin (Juan Pablo Raba) calls up the mysterious Mariana (Raoul Max Trujillo) to help with his many problems, which include his ranch-usurping half-brother Rob-Will and those Duttons from Montana.
-
Nicolas Winding Refn’s audacious return to feature filmmaking is a gorgeous, mysterious act of cinema, sensorial and transgressive, that demands to be experienced on its own terms.
Adjective
-
Vermeule—a former clerk for Scalia—proposes that conservatives should read the Constitution’s ambiguous phrases and general structure in an openly moral way, drawing on principles grounded in the nature and purposes of government.
-
Without a unified, clean, and accessible data structure, AI outputs quickly become ambiguous, hallucinated, and diluted, deepening the clarity crisis rather than resolving it.
Adjective
-
It was filled with brackets and parentheticals, written in different fonts and colors, much of it in capital letters, at once detailed and cryptic.
-
His doctors speculated his infection might have been a rare case of cryptic transmission from sharing meals and bathrooms with his coworkers, one of whom apparently had a tapeworm infection.
Adjective
-
When that’s not enough, Google may add random noise to the data that can further obscure identities.
-
This seems, if anything, deliberately obscure.
Adjective
-
Naughton joins a cast led by Reeve Carney as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, Eva Noblezada as Daisy Buchanan and Corbin Bleu as Nick Carraway.
-
Excavations at Rising Star have sparked debate about whether these little hominins had all ended up in the caves by tragic accident, or whether they’d been carefully placed there by other members of their enigmatic species, dubbed Homo naledi.
Adjective
-
The top-of-the-line chef’s kitchen sports metallic cabinetry paired with dark marble countertops and backsplashes.
-
These include rolled or folded leaf blades, a dark or blue tinge to the foliage, or lingering footprints after walking on the lawn.
Adjective
-
The 6-foot-11 Condon rebounds relentlessly, protects the rim, delivers uncanny passes and makes winning plays, none bigger than his hustle to secure Florida’s comeback victory against Houston in the 2025 national championship game.
-
Like Buster Keaton before him, Knoxville has an uncanny awareness of how his death-defying escapades appear on camera.
Adjective
-
His guru, Ramakrishna, was a 19th-century mystic and spiritual teacher in Bengal whose teachings on the unity underlying all religions shaped the worldview Vivekananda would go on to spread globally.
-
In Mozart’s opera, Tamino, a prince in a fairyland of mystic temples and mystifying gods, relies on his supernatural flute that turn sorrow into joy to get him out of jams.
Cite this Entry
“Inscrutable.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inscrutable. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
