Today I found out that despite using and hearing it frequently, "unintuitive" is not a word.
I searched english.stackexchange and found countless answers where the word is used.
It also seems that while all dictionaries (except Wiktionary) do not list "unintutive", some dictionaries list "non-intuitive"/"nonintutitve" (Merriam Webster) while others only list "counter-intuitive" (Cambridge).
I see no good reason why it should not be a (correct) word. Can you?
Very unintuitive...
unintuitive (adj.)
1842 W. Hamilton Diss. in T. Reid Wks. 767 The unintuitive judgments.
unintuitively (adv.)
1904 B. Russell in Mind 13 347 The same object can be presented either intuitively or unintuitively.
1980 Notre Dame Jrnl. Formal Logic 21 351 The logic is unintuitively cumbersome since it is of the axiomatic type.
non-intuitive (adj.)
1856 H. F. Brownson tr. J. L. Balmes Fund. Philos. 118 Ideas purely intellectual, either intuitive or non-intuitive.
1981 Icarus 47 220 The nonintuitive dynamical environment of Phobos and Deimos. (OED online)
nonintuitive (adj.)
Not intuitive: such as
a. Not readily learned or understood
Working with a nonintuitive interface causes many programmers to make mistakes. — Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene
b. Not based on or agreeing with intuition
nonintuitive results m-w
counterintuitive (adj.)
Contrary to what one would intuitively expect
As counterintuitive as it may seem, the universe has no center, and it has no boundary.— Jim Bell m-w
unintuitive {adj} (in particular, counterintuitive; counter to what one's intuition expects)--SEE: counterintuitive Joseph Lesser; English/Portuguese Dictionary (2019)
Google Ngram:
If we combine the hyphenated and non-hyphenated forms, it appears that non(-)intuitive and unintuitive are roughly equivalent in frequency today, at least looking at their Ngrams. However, non is trending down, and un up.
People have found the assignments of degrees to complexes unintuitive and unmotivated. ... Similar unintuitive results are obtained when the sentences stand in non-formal logical relations. B. Hale et al.; A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (2017)
Although the non-ramified or simple theory of types has attracted much subsequent work, all type theory suffers from a problem of unintuitive duplication. Simon Blackburn; The Oxford Dictionary of Philosphy (2016)
The unintuitive equilibrium is that John works less hard and gets a B grade whether he is high or low ability and is given an executive job; if John did get an A grade, he would be given a manual job. Edward Cartwright; Behavioral Economics (2018)
If the failure of BI-intuitions showed that the norms of reasoning are sometimes unintuitive, the same will be true of many laws of the tutor's theories of deducibility and probability. They, too, will be unintuitive. In the former case, theoretical intuitions were summoned to relieve our anxiety about BI-unintuitiveness. In the present case, the unintuitive nature of these laws of logic and probability theory may itself require explaining away. If we resort to the same measure as before, we will offer theoretical intuitions in support of the unintuitive case. Since the unintuitive cases reside in the ... John Woods; Paradox and Paraconsistency (2003)
Perhaps one could still mount a common sense-based objection to the MWI, if one thought that the unintuitive features of the MWI outweigh its intuitive causal explanations. R. Peels et al.; Scientific Challenges to Common Sense Philosophy (2020)
Although the transformation preserved the configuration of the intuitive and unintuitive pooling equilibria, it was done to induce decisions in early matchings to correspond to the case where low-ability people do get an education, and high-ability people do not. D. Davis and C. Holt; Experimental Economics (2021)
Any version of Interest-Relative Invariantism (IRI) will have certain unintuitive consequences. I have tried to argue that it is not clear that the unintuitive consequences of IRI are any worse than the unintuitive consequences of other standard epistemological theories. Jason Stanley; Knowledge and Practical Interests (2005)
First, the degree to which Haji's conclusions are unintuitive must be weighted against how unintuitive it is to reject one or more of his premises. Derk Pereboom; Living Without Free Will (2006)
A Google News search turned up (headlines only):
David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters, "Exponential growth is unintuitive and can be frightening" TheGuardian.com (19 Dec. 2021)
Fiona Truant, "Unintuitive dining space hosts two killer food options" Colorodo Springs Indy (Oct. 27, 2021)
Danika Ellis, "BOOK PIRATES BUY MORE BOOKS, AND OTHER UNINTUITIVE BOOK PIRACY FACTS" BookRiot.com (July 26, 2021)
Michael Perrigo, "Google Tasks is getting rid of its unintuitive navigation drawer and will let you star entries" ChromeUnboxed.com (Aug. 25, 2021)
Minh Nguyen, "Immersive unintuitive game design" HoniSoit.com (May 2, 2021)
The question remains, at least for me, whether unintuitive is sometimes intended or understood to be stronger than non-intuitive, i.e., counter-intuitive or fully contrary.
I found this quiz in Jon Marks, Check Your English Vocabulary for Computers and Information Technology (2007):
2.5 Some useful adjectives
A. Choose the best word:
Software that is easy to use is ...
a. user-easy b. user-friendly c. usableSoftware which is obvious to use is ...
a. intuitive b. guessable c. comprehensibleSoftware which is not obvious to use is ...
a. counter-intuitive b. unintutive c. non-intutive
...
Answer Key:
2.5 Some useful adjectives
A: 1 b, 2 a, 3 a, 4 c, 5 a, 6 c, 7 a, 8 b, 9 c
I don't see any discussion of these words elsewhere in the book.
Unintuitive is in use. You can see this or this.
You should not think that it is not a word. It is a legitimate word that has been underused owing to a couple of other equivalents that have been used more often.
