Both Uses of
intelligible
in
Gulliver's Travels
- And I observe, when any Yahoo comes from London out of curiosity to visit me at my house, we neither of us are able to deliver our conceptions in a manner intelligible to the other.†
Chpt Intr.intelligible = capable of being understood
- I answered as loud as I could in several languages, and he often laid his ear within two yards of me: but all in vain, for we were wholly unintelligible to each other.†
Chpt 2 *unintelligible = not capable of being understoodstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unintelligible means not and reverses the meaning of intelligible. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.