1694. Locke, Hum. Und. (ed. 2), III. iv. § 4, marg. Names of simple Ideas undefinable.
1750. Chesterf., Lett. (1774), 49. That is the occasion in which manners, dexterity, address, and the undefineable je ne sçais quoi, triumph.
1780. Burke, Œcon. Reform, Wks. III. 306. Other persons meriting as little as they do, might be put upon it to an undefinable amount.
1827. Disraeli, V. Grey, V. xv. When he was experiencing emotions, which, though undefinable, he felt to be new.
1884. Church, Bacon, viii. 201. The undefinable but very real character of greatness.
sb. 1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, X. xii. ¶ 23. I had no mind to meddle any more with the dish of undefinables.
Hence Undefinableness; Undefinably adv.
1705[?]. Berkeley, in Fraser, Life (1871), 437. There may be another cause of the undefinableness of certain ideas,… viz. the want of names.
1886. W. J. Tucker, E. Europe, 127. Every village one passes through has … something undefinably characteristic about it.
