impossible — English Dictionary

Adjective

1. Not possible; not able to be done or happen.

   Usage

   • not-comparable
   • usually

   Examples

   More examples (3)

   Antonio: What impossible matter will he make easy next? Sebastian: I think he will carry this island home in his pocket and give it his son for an apple. Antonio : And sowing the kernels of it in the sea bring forth more islands.

   It was impoſſible that the queen of France [Marie Antoinette] ſhould not be deeply affected by a conteſt, which ſo cloſely involved her neareſt and deareſt connections, and threatened ſo immediate and perhaps irreparable a breach of the harmony and friendſhip ſubſiſting between them.

   ALICE: I'm looking for a White Rabbit.... So if you don't mind. (Alice looks through the key hole) There he is - I simply must get through DOORKNOB: Sorry, you're much too big. Simply impassable. ALICE: You mean impossible. DOORKNOB: No, IMPASSABLE - NOTHING'S IMPOSSIBLE.

   13 March 1962, John F. Kennedy, speech at the White House Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

   More examples (1)

   Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […]. Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.

   It is difficult, if not impossible, to memorize 20,000 consecutive numbers.

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   Sarah thinks that nothing is impossible because things can always somehow happen.

2. Very difficult to deal with.

   Usage

   • Colloquial
   • not-comparable
   • usually

   Examples

   You never listen to a word I say – you're impossible!

   This humidity is impossible.

   More examples (1)

   I never met a more impossible girl.

3. imaginary

   Usage

   • Dated
   • not-comparable
   • usually

   Examples

   impossible quantities, or imaginary numbers

Noun

1. An impossibility.

   Examples

   In fact, to most people, the real impossibles do not seem impossible, or wonderful, or even difficult at all.

   “Ye can't expect impossibles, and Jim hadn't no idee o' takin' yer trunk along of him in ther buggy when he kem hyar this mornin'.

   More examples (4)

   For one thing, the Gospel's moral impossibles appear, in this light, not as an objection to Christianity, but as one of its most striking evidences.

   Yes, the church lives for impossibles, and she lives by impossibles, and if she shrinks from impossibles her own vigor will shrink and die.

   Aristotle (1952), in his Nicomachean Ethics, described the relation between will and choice: a Choice cannot relate to impossibles, and if anyone said he chose them he would be thought silly;

   Dreams are made out of impossibles. We cannot reach the impossibles by using the analytical minds which are trained to deal with hard information which is currently available.

2. A skateboard trick consisting of a backflip performed in midair.

Adjective

1. not capable of occurring or being accomplished or dealt with

   Antonyms

   possible

   Examples

   an impossible dream

   an impossible situation

2. totally unlikely

   Synonyms

   inconceivableout of the questionunimaginable

3. (used of persons or their behavior) not acceptable or reasonable

   Synonyms

   unacceptable

   Examples

   impossible behavior

Noun

1. something that cannot be done

   Broader terms

   impossibilityimpossible action

   Examples

   his assignment verged on the impossible