How to Use intelligible in a Sentence

intelligible

adjective
  • Very little of the recording was intelligible.
  • As words bubbled out of me, not many of them were intelligible to others.
    — Kavita Das, Longreads, 29 Jan. 2018
  • Chuck Berry had worked to make each word of that perfect phrase intelligible.
    — Jack Hamilton, Slate Magazine, 19 Mar. 2017
  • Where might comfort lie and how can purpose be found in an abyss of intelligible meaning?
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 26 Sep. 2023
  • That’s far more important than how intelligible its lyrics are.
    — Billboard Japan, Billboard, 7 Aug. 2024
  • Now anyone who could read and count had a neat, perfectly intelligible blank bracket to fill out.
    — New York Times, 12 Mar. 2018
  • Utilize that idea in a way that is intelligible to people who have never had any exposure?
    — Dominic Corry, EW.com, 5 Aug. 2021
  • 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
  • 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
  • Andries put on music—flutes and vocals without intelligible words or a beat.
    — Moises Velasquez-Manoff, WIRED, 8 May 2018
  • 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
  • The objects that people imagine, which are decoded in the same way, are vaguer but still intelligible.
    — Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 13 Nov. 2019
  • Its pedagogy suggests how the past might be reframed and made intelligible.
    — Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2019
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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, 19 Feb. 2021
  • 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
  • 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
  • Unlike Newsom’s veto of the gas stove bill, the reasoning here is at least intelligible.
    — Sammy Roth, Los Angeles Times, 1 Oct. 2024
  • 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
  • Kaner writes action that’s both fun and intelligible — no mean feat — while keeping the story moving forward nicely.
    — Charlie Jane Anders, Washington Post, 13 Sep. 2023
  • The result is intelligible but monotonous–not much like Siri, who is voiced by real people.
    — Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 5 June 2017
  • The remark was not, however, intelligible in the media room, where the ceremony was streamed live.
    — Jake Kanter, Deadline, 23 Feb. 2026
  • The first verse features a rapid-fire, barely intelligible verse from the otherwise unknown qrinceton himself.
    — Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 7 Oct. 2025
  • One step that researchers have taken, to positive effect, is to begin patrolling the intelligible parts—the prompts and outputs.
    — Jaron Lanier, The New Yorker, 1 Mar. 2024
  • 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
  • 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
  • The most jarring aspect of the Mario film is hearing Mario speak intelligible, complete sentences.
    — Gene Park, Washington Post, 6 Oct. 2022

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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