inscrutable
adjective

- difficult to fathom or understand; impenetrable
- mysterious

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

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ORIGIN

'Inscrutable' stems from the Lower Latin inscrutabilis (in=not+scrutari=examine) and is related to scrutinise, meaning to examine something very carefully, to discover more information.

Thus inscrutable literally refers to something, including a person, that cannot be examined and which remains a mystery.

A person with an expressionless face can be described as inscrutable. It can also apply to people who do not reveal much about themselves, therefore making it difficult to ascertain who they really are.

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UNDERSTANDING FELINE INTELLIGENCE

If you’ve ever wondered whether your pet cat is aware of your whereabouts, research may have an answer.

Findings of a Japanese study support the idea that cats retain a mental representation of their owners even when they can’t see them; a crucial bridge to higher cognitive processes such as forward planning and imagination.

Cats appear to track their owners as they move about the house and are surprised if they turn up somewhere they’re not expecting them.

Source: “Socio-spatial cognition in cats: Mentally mapping owner’s location from voice” - Saho Takagi, et al.

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SYNONYMS

abstruse, arcane, baffling, blank, cryptic, enigmatic, expressionless, fish-eyed, hidden, impenetrable, indecipherable, inexplicable, INSCRUTABLE, masklike, mysterious, nobody home, po-faced, poker-faced, secret, sphinx-like, stony-faced, straight-faced, unfathomable, unreadable

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“He’s INSCRUTABLE. I just can’t read his face whenever we speak.”

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HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

Paul Smith