Inscrutable means giving away nothing of what is thought or felt. An inscrutable expression, inscrutable to the end, an inscrutable smile.
It is a compliment about a poker player and an insult when applied to a whole people, which it has been for centuries in a lazy racial stereotype worth refusing. The Latin means not able to be searched, and scrutinise is the same root.
1adjectiveinscrutableGiving away nothing of what is thought or felt.
“The judge listened with an inscrutable expression, so no one knew what she thought.”
inscrutable is a quality.
In- is not, and the rest is Latin for examine: the same searching behind scrutiny. Nothing in the face can be examined.
hooks ontoscrutiny
Latin inscrutabilis, in-, not, plus scrutari, to search. Scrutiny is a relative.
Latin
īnscrūtābilis
English, today
inscrutable
Built from
Borrowed into late Middle English - from Latin īnscrūtābilis, from in- (“not”) + scrūtō (“to examine”), corresponding to in + scrutable
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA