How to Use illegible in a Sentence

illegible

adjective
Definition of illegiblenext
Synonyms for illegiblenext
  • Kyle testified that a card in the wallet, visible in the picture but illegible because of the image quality, did have Elders’ name.
    — James Hartley, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 17 Apr. 2024
  • The 17 ballots under review either arrived without postmark dates that showed whether they were sent on or before Election Day or with dates that were illegible.
    — Harriet Blair Rowan, The Mercury News, 30 Apr. 2024
  • The date is filled in, and the illegible name of some pesticide.
    — Elisa Albert, Longreads, 7 May 2018
  • The letters are smudged and the last third of the paragraph is nearly illegible.
    — New York Times, 11 June 2021
  • The headstones for the most part are weathered and illegible, but several have dates of deaths in the mid-1800s.
    — Richard Mason, Arkansas Online, 13 Dec. 2020
  • The fragment, which takes on the shape of what looks like Africa and parts of East Asia, is completely illegible.
    — Susie Schmank, Indianapolis Star, 7 Oct. 2017
  • Image From the ground, though, looking up, the work is a glowing, cherry smudge — the idea of a sign, but illegible.
    — Martha Schwendener, New York Times, 13 Mar. 2024
  • An image that looks great at a small size on a large screen might become tiny and illegible when scaled down on a small screen.
    — Rob Weychert, ProPublica, 4 Feb. 2022
  • The county recorder’s office deemed it illegible and did not record the transfer.
    — Los Angeles Times, 18 May 2022
  • In addition, an illegible word was written on the back of the statue, and blue paint was spattered around the base.
    — Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY, 24 July 2019
  • A face with reptilian eyes appears on the back of a white van covered in enough dirt to make the license plate all but illegible.
    — Pavel Golovkin, The Denver Post, 28 Apr. 2017
  • But way too many of its scenes take place in tedious, illegible darkness.
    — New York Times, 22 Apr. 2021
  • The full original date on this photo from The Star’s archives is illegible, but the year is clearly 1950.
    — kansascity, 7 Feb. 2018
  • The scholar, though, refused to allow her labor, her work, or her voice, which is so clear on the page, be rendered illegible.
    — Kirsten West Savali, Essence, 25 Nov. 2020
  • Sometimes the names on census forms are illegible or spelled differently from one year to the next.
    — Tracy Scott Forson, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Feb. 2024
  • Or what if the Russians one day hacked into a driverless car networks and sent all of the Democratic voters to the wrong precinct, making them illegible to vote?
    — Nick Bilton, vanityfair.com, 27 Sep. 2017
  • Much like Littlefinger's scroll, the font was pretty illegible at first glance.
    — Christopher Rosa, Glamour, 30 Aug. 2017
  • Gina Costa found that the city overpaid for work, and that tow slips were incomplete or illegible.
    — Brian Amaral, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Mar. 2023
  • But the painting was difficult to see, and key details were almost illegible in the context of San Moise.
    — Washington Post, 27 June 2019
  • For me, writing on a phone screen was even more illegible, leading to lots of transcription errors.
    — Larry Magid, The Mercury News, 30 Aug. 2019
  • One call center agent said the issue was that his paperwork was illegible.
    — Hannah Dreier, Anchorage Daily News, 22 Dec. 2021
  • In the past three years or so, however, tremors in my hands have rendered my handwriting mostly illegible.
    — Jacobina Martin, Washington Post, 2 Nov. 2022
  • However, the menu changes daily, written in near-illegible notebooks, so best to ask for the verbal version.
    — Bon Appetit, 25 June 2018
  • As Palmer looked on, Jacobsen's scrawl became more and more illegible.
    — Dennis Manoloff, cleveland.com, 2 Aug. 2017
  • They’re all typewritten in English, a few of them over and over again as Klari produced new drafts, editing by hand in the margins in her familiar, illegible – scrawl.
    — Katie Hafner, Scientific American, 31 Mar. 2022
  • The words, as well as some illegible markings, were written with a marker on five bricks of the building’s exterior eastern wall.
    — Steve Sadin, chicagotribune.com, 29 Nov. 2021
  • Coming into Wilbraham, Home of [illegible] Ice Cream, its sign was buried under snow.
    — Peter Rubin, Longreads, 26 Mar. 2024
  • Even if yours does, the date can become basically illegible over time.
    — Nina Bahadur, SELF, 12 Sep. 2019
  • Faulty machinery and mail ballots with illegible barcodes were partly to blame for the delay in results.
    — Dallas News, 4 Nov. 2020
  • Say one of our story producers has an image that looks great in a desktop web browser but is illegible when it gets squished down into a mobile screen.
    — Propublica’s Design and Platform Team, ProPublica, 23 Mar. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'illegible.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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