


Choose Your Words between Similar Words : indeterminate vs. indeterminable. Caught between words? Make the right choice.
Choose between: indeterminate vs. indeterminable
Understanding the nuances of this word pair, indeterminate and indeterminable, hinges on understanding the words’ parts. The root word, determine, means to establish something. The prefix in- in this case means not. Both –ate and –able create adjectives, -ate meaning having the characteristics of and –able meaning to be able.
Indeterminate, then, means not (in-) having the characteristics of (-ate) being fixed (determine): not fixed. Indefinite. Not determined. As in:
Prisoners on indeterminate sentences ‘left in limbo’ over parole dates
A man of indeterminate age peeks out of a cut-glass window.
For no discernibly good reason, I am back on Twitter for an indeterminate period of time.
Indeterminable means not (in-) able to (-able) establish (determine): incapable of being fixed or determined. Such as:
This equated to 1082 votes for and 102 against, with two ballots indeterminable.
However, there are those movies that fall into that rare category of indeterminable.
I said before how if B existed inside of the mold by itself, B’s size would be indeterminable because it rests inside of infinity, which it can’t be compared to.
Remember: if something isn’t fixed, it’s indeterminate. If it can’t be fixed, it’s indeterminable.
indeterminable
The adjective indeterminable describes something that can’t be known for sure, like what grade you would’ve gotten on a paper you never turned in. Continue reading…
indeterminate
Indeterminate means not known or decided. When someone contracts a rare stomach parasite but has not been traveling internationally, you might say it had indeterminate origins. Continue reading…
