uncountable
Etymology
un- + countable
adj
-
So many as to be incapable of being counted. The reasons for our failure were as uncountable as the grains of sand on a beach. -
(mathematics) Incapable of being put into one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers or any subset thereof. Cantor’s “diagonal proof” shows that the set of real numbers is uncountable. -
(grammar, of a noun) That cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and therefore usually takes no plural form. Example: information. Many languages do not distinguish countable nouns from uncountable nouns.One meaning in law of the usually uncountable noun "information" is used in the plural and is countable.
noun
-
(grammar) An uncountable noun. But inherent uncountables such as 'stuffs' can be conceptualized in two different ways, depending on whether they are viewed in terms of quantity or in terms of quality. 1988, Anna Wierzbicka, The Semantics of Grammar, page 440
Attribution / Disclaimer All definitions come directly from Wiktionary using the Wiktextract library. We do not edit or curate the definitions for any words, if you feel the definition listed is incorrect or offensive please suggest modifications directly to the source (wiktionary/uncountable), any changes made to the source will update on this page periodically.