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undeniable

UK/ˌʌn.dɪˈnaɪ.(j)ə.bəɫ/US/ˌʌn.dɪˈnaɪ.(j)ə.bəɫ/
adjectiveC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — deny sits at #1,438neutral

Undeniable means so clearly true that nobody can argue against it. The evidence is there and that is the end of it.

It attaches to facts, talent and charm, so undeniable evidence and an undeniable talent are both standard. There is a common construction in it is undeniable that, which introduces a concession before an objection, so the word often appears immediately before a but. Indisputable and incontrovertible are the more formal versions, and both are longer than the point usually requires.

Definitions of undeniable

  1. 1adjectiveundeniableUnable to be denied or disputed.C1

    “The improvement is undeniable.”

Also accepted in games: indisputable

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₁eǵ-

  2. Proto-Indo-European

    *né — no, not

  3. Latin

    denegare — to deny, to refuse

  4. Old French

    denoier — to deny, to repudiate

  5. Middle English

    denyen

  6. English

    deny

  7. English, today

    undeniable

Built from

  • de- · Latin — away
  • negare · Latin — to refuse

From un- + deny + -able, compare deniable. deny comes from Middle English denyen, from Old French denoier (“to deny, to repudiate”) (French dénier), from Latin denegare (“to deny, to refuse”), from de- (“away”) and negare (“to refuse”), the latter ultimately from Proto-Indo-European né (“no, not”). a doublet of denegate.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 25 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

undeniable in the wild

  • An undeniable signature is a digital signature scheme which allows the signer to be selective to whom they allow to verify signatures.

    Undeniable signature

  • To his taste, guided by a single conversation, here was the point on which Miss Brooke would be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty.

    Middlemarch· George Eliot

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the negare family

negativedeny

undeniable — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others