olvashatatlan

Olvashatatlan is a Hungarian adjective meaning unreadable or illegible. It describes text, handwriting, or typography that cannot be read clearly. The term can refer to physical factors such as faded ink, damaged pages, or poor contrast, as well as to intrinsic complexity of the script or language that makes decoding difficult. The opposite form is olvasható, meaning readable or legible.

The word is formed from the verb olvas (to read) with suffixes that convey negation or impossibility, yielding an adjective that denotes something that cannot be read. Hungarian often uses this productive word-formation pattern to express readability or its lack.

In usage, olvashatatlan commonly appears in discussions of handwriting quality, printed materials, typefaces, or digital text. It is also used metaphorically to describe text that is conceptually unclear or overly opaque, such as bureaucratic writing or dense academic prose. In contrast, contexts emphasizing accessibility might prefer terms focusing on legibility and readability improvements, such as clear typography or larger fonts.

See also: legibility, readability, illegibility, typography, accessibility, OCR (optical character recognition).