immeasurable

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English immesurable, also spelled inmesurable and ynmesurable,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English in- + mesurable, the Middle English form of measurable,^[3][2] which is from Old French mesurable, from Late Latin mēnsūrābilis, from mēnsūrō (“to measure”), from Latin mēnsūra (“a measuring, a measurement”), from mētior (“to measure”),^[5] which Watkins traces to Proto-Indo-European *me- (“to measure”).^[5] The OED analyses the word as the negative prefix im- added to measurable, and compares immésurable in 16th-century French.^[6] The word can alternate with immensurable.^[5][7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Beyond measure, infinite, of theological matters: about 1400, in a manuscript of the B-text of Piers Plowman (composed about 1378), where friars and masters raise materes inmesurables about the Trinity.^[2] Etymonline likewise dates the word to the late 14th century,^[5] and Dictionary.com to 1350–1400;^[4] the OED's first record is from 1440.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word meant both very great, as of a tyrant's cruelty in John Shirley's account of the death of James I of Scotland, and, in theology, immense or infinite, as an attribute of God, as in Pecock's Rule of about 1443.^[2] The OED's single sense, "that cannot be measured; immense", is recorded from 1440 on.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "immense; not to be measured; indefinitely extensive", quoting Hooker on churches raised to an immeasurable height.^[8] The adverb immeasurably is also late Middle English, immeasurableness dates from the mid 16th century and immeasurability from the early 19th.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – of matters concerning the Trinity, beyond measure, infinite.^[2]
• 1440 – that cannot be measured; immense.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Too great to be measured; limitless, vast: The fire did immeasurable damage to the old library.^[10][3][6]
2. That cannot be measured at all; immensurable.^[3][6][8]

Word family

• immeasurability
• immeasurably
• immeasurableness

Related words

• measure
• measurable
• immense
• immensurable

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins