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illegible

/ɪˈlɛdʒəbəl/

Impossible or difficult to read or decipher

From English, from Latin in- il- (not) + Late Latin, from Latin legere legible (capable of being read).

adjective
il-
English, 17th century
il-
Assimilated negative prefix meaning “not,” used before legible.
English, 1630s
illegible
Formed with il- plus legible: “not capable of being read.”
legible
Proto-Indo-European
*leg-
Root meaning “to collect, gather,” with a development toward selecting or picking out words.
Latin
legere
“To read”; literally connected with gathering or picking out written words.
Late Latin
legibilis
“That can be read; written plainly.”
English, late 14th century
legible
“Capable of being read.”
Combined
il- + legible
The negative prefix il- combines with legible to mean “not readable.”
English, 1630s
illegible
Originally describing writing so obscured or defaced that it could not be deciphered; later broadened to “hard to read.”
Modern English
illegible
“

A smudged seventeenth-century manuscript could turn an ordinary word into a small detective story: the ink is present, the letters are technically there, and yet the message refuses to surrender. Illegible first appeared in English in the 1630s, built from il-, an assimilated form of Latin in- meaning “not,” and legible, “readable.” The surprising part is legere, the Latin ancestor of “read,” which originally carried the earthy idea of gathering or picking things out—rather like selecting words from a crowded page. That same root also lies behind lecture, intelligence, collect, and select: reading was imagined as gathering meaning from marks. So when handwriting becomes illegible, it has not merely become ugly; it has stopped allowing the reader to harvest its words.

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