incalculability

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in·cal·cu·la·ble

(ĭn-kăl′kyə-lə-bəl)

adj.

a. Impossible to calculate: an incalculable number of ants.

b. Too great to be calculated or reckoned: incalculable suffering.

2. Impossible to foresee; unpredictable: "The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird" (Edith Wharton).

in·cal′cu·la·bil′i·ty n.

in·cal′cu·la·bly adv.

Synonyms: incalculable, countless, immeasurable, incomputable, inestimable, infinite, innumerable, measureless
These adjectives mean being greater than can be calculated or reckoned: incalculable riches; countless hours; an immeasurable distance; an incomputable amount; jewels of inestimable value; an infinite number of reasons; innumerable difficulties; measureless power.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

References in classic literature ?

The great fact all the while, however, had been the incalculability; since he HAD supposed himself, from decade to decade, to be allowing, and in the most liberal and intelligent manner, for brilliancy of change.

View in context

i) the uncertainty and incalculability affecting both social and natural events; [6]

Economic experiments versus physical science experiments: an ontology-based approach

is calculable out of the counting and when incalculability is no

INTRODUCTION: INDEXING THINKING, THINKING INDEX: SAHITYA IN TRANS

In the case of maternal love, romantic love's incalculability of the encounter becomes even more radical.

Love, attachment and effacement: Romantic dimensions in Sylvia Plath's children poems

Mary Frances McKenna's "The Promise of Enlightenment and the Incalculability of Freedom: A Consideration of Horkheimer and Adorno's Critique of Enlightenment in Relation to Ratzinger's Notion of Freedom" shows how secular thinkers can see the weakness in modern views of human nature, but they cannot easily provide a satisfying account of it.

Don Briel and the Catholic Studies Project

Indeed, only the indices' behavioral assumptions can properly explain the indices' incalculability. Indices [pi], [kappa] and [alpha] assume coders draw marbles, and marbles' color distribution equals target distribution.

We Agreed to Measure Agreement--Redefining Reliability De-justifies Krippendorff s Alpha

These seem to be characterized by a peculiar kind of incalculability which makes one disposed to believe after many unsuccessful attempts that all known rational methods of prediction must fail in their case.

Ristic-Balakrishnan extended exponential distribution/Distribuicao Ristic- Balakrishnan exponencial estendida

It is because my life is finite, 'ended' in a certain sense that I keep this relation to incalculability and undecidability as to the instant of my death.

DECONSTRUCTING DEATH: DERRIDA AND THE SCENE OF EXECUTION

refused to grant general damages on the basis of their incalculability.

Rights gone wrong: a case against wrongful life

What distinguishes poetic lists, on the other hand, is their profound infinity and sheer incalculability. They 'seek to enumerate something that eludes our capacity for control and denomination' (Eco, 2009: 117).

Introduction: the politics of the list

While the politically inspired Greco-Roman discourse and the religiously motivated Jewish discourse was based on the calculability of the cosmic order and emphasized--although in very different ways--the fidelity to the law, Paul the Apostle proclaims the incalculability of God's entering into the world and announces an unfalsifiable truth.

The figure of the Apostle Paul in contemporary philosophy (Heidegger, Badiou, Agamben, Zizek)

The increase in complexity and incalculability that it brings in its wake makes the cozy simplicity of religious or ethnic identities all the more attractive.