How to Use intelligible in a Sentence

intelligible

adjective
  • Very little of the recording was intelligible.
  • Chuck Berry had worked to make each word of that perfect phrase intelligible.
    Jack Hamilton, Slate Magazine, 19 Mar. 2017
  • As words bubbled out of me, not many of them were intelligible to others.
    Kavita Das, Longreads, 29 Jan. 2018
  • Some of the conversation at the beginning of the audio is not intelligible, but the deputies discuss whether to stop the man at all.
    Peter Nickeas, CNN, 11 Feb. 2022
  • Much like Nick from the show—who has a meltdown while gifting his friend Schmidt a pastry treat—we’ve become less and less intelligible the longer the bit has gone on.
    Alma Avalle, Bon Appétit, 10 Feb. 2023
  • Then the writers had to solve the challenge of making unfathomable scales of time and change feel intelligible, at least a bit.
    Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2023
  • One of the basic challenges facing researchers will be how to process and present their findings in a clear, intelligible way to the public.
    Jonathan Wosen, STAT, 26 Sep. 2022
  • Six aluminum plates on the walls, engraved with fragments of not-quite-intelligible text, are filled in with marzipan.
    New York Times, 14 Feb. 2018
  • Where might comfort lie and how can purpose be found in an abyss of intelligible meaning?
    Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 26 Sep. 2023
  • The objects that people imagine, which are decoded in the same way, are vaguer but still intelligible.
    Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 13 Nov. 2019
  • Bennett can move on her own and type with difficulty, but the muscles in her mouth and throat that produce speech no longer work to form intelligible sounds.
    Daniel Gilbert, Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2023
  • Now anyone who could read and count had a neat, perfectly intelligible blank bracket to fill out.
    New York Times, 12 Mar. 2018
  • Since the information in its maps would be most intelligible from overhead, it may be missed by most viewers.
    Blake Gopnik, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2023
  • Everyone was there to be seen; there was not the slightest pretense about being there to have fun or to have any intelligible exchange with anyone.
    Walter Hopps, The New Yorker, 5 June 2017
  • Following a car crash and severe stroke at age 20, the man, known as Pancho, lost the ability to produce intelligible speech.
    New York Times, 12 May 2022
  • Utilize that idea in a way that is intelligible to people who have never had any exposure?
    Dominic Corry, EW.com, 5 Aug. 2021
  • The most jarring aspect of the Mario film is hearing Mario speak intelligible, complete sentences.
    Gene Park, Washington Post, 6 Oct. 2022
  • Matt Furie may have an intelligible arc from apathy to upset to pseudo triumph, but Pepe? Pepe’s all over the place.
    Emma Grey Ellis, Wired, 27 Jan. 2020
  • Even her mockery is on the money, though a few jokes will be intelligible only to music-world initiates.
    Justin Davidson, Vulture, 11 Oct. 2022
  • While languages can and do mutate over the centuries, the changes usually become more, not less intelligible.
    Joseph S. Laughon, National Review, 7 Sep. 2021
  • He was saved by the writings of Carl Jung, which taught that the world was not meaningless but made intelligible by recurring cultural patterns: myths.
    Jeet Heer, The New Republic, 21 May 2018
  • Journalists were not admitted to the courtroom but were able to watch a video link from a room nearby, with barely intelligible audio.
    Reuters, NBC News, 19 June 2023
  • In fact, much of the message’s first minute is difficult to comprehend, in part because the voice of the other man in the conversation is muffled and barely intelligible.
    Rich Schapiro, NBC News, 25 Oct. 2019
  • Its pedagogy suggests how the past might be reframed and made intelligible.
    Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2019
  • In the summer, the Russians seemed to maintain an intelligible schedule of bombardments.
    Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 22 Feb. 2023
  • Andries put on music—flutes and vocals without intelligible words or a beat.
    Moises Velasquez-Manoff, WIRED, 8 May 2018
  • The principal singers are lightly amplified, which helped make their words more intelligible; despite that, the pit-stage balances were sometimes off.
    Heidi Waleson, WSJ, 7 Aug. 2017
  • Ross’s screenplay, because a lot of what’s spoken, at least by [Mark] Wahlberg, is imperfectly intelligible, thanks to a mumbling delivery by the film’s star.
    Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 24 Jan. 2023
  • News media and even Navalny’s parents were barred from attending, except for 86 minutes on the first day when they were not allowed in the courtroom but watched a video link with barely intelligible sound.
    Robyn Dixon, Washington Post, 4 Aug. 2023
  • The result is intelligible but monotonous–not much like Siri, who is voiced by real people.
    Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 5 June 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'intelligible.' 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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