uncountable

From un- +‎ countable.

• IPA^(key): /ʌnˈkaʊntəbəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

uncountable (not comparable)

1. So many as to be incapable of being counted.

   The reasons for our failure were as uncountable as the grains of sand on a beach.

   • 1988 July 13, Douglas Martin, “About New York; Tasting History Through Papers That Age Well”, in The New York Times‎:

     Mr. Chambre has since spent uncountable hours and even more uncountable dollars buying upward of 23,000 documents, and he figures to be just hitting speed.

2. (mathematics) Incapable of being put into one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers or any subset thereof.

   Cantor’s “diagonal proof” shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable.

3. (grammar, of a noun) That cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and therefore usually takes no plural form. Example: information.

   Many languages do not distinguish countable nouns from uncountable nouns.

   One meaning in law of the usually uncountable noun "information" is used in the plural and is countable.

• (too many to be counted): countless; see also Thesaurus:innumerable
• (grammar): non-count

• countable

• (set theory): infinite

uncountable (plural uncountables)

1. (grammar) An uncountable noun.
   • 1988, Anna Wierzbicka, The Semantics of Grammar, page 440:

     But inherent uncountables such as 'stuffs' can be conceptualized in two different ways, depending on whether they are viewed in terms of quantity or in terms of quality.

• (mathematics) infinite
• (mathematics) innumerable
• (linguistics) mass noun
• (linguistics) singulare tantum
• Category:Uncountable nouns by language