impossible
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: mathematics
sciences
Etymology: From Middle English impossible, equivalent to im- + possible.
Base: possible
Affixes: im-
Inflected forms:
form: more impossible
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most impossible
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: inpossible
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: impossibles
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: inpossible
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Not possible; not able to be done or happen.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
usually
examples: 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.
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.
Sarah thinks that nothing is impossible because things can always somehow happen.
gloss: Very difficult to deal with.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
not-comparable
usually
examples: You never listen to a word I say – you're impossible!
This humidity is impossible.
I never met a more impossible girl.
gloss: imaginary
pos: adj
tags: dated
not-comparable
usually
examples: impossible quantities, or imaginary numbers
gloss: An impossibility.
pos: noun
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'.
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.
gloss: A skateboard trick consisting of a backflip performed in midair.
pos: noun
Synonyms: unfeasible
nonpossible
unhappenable
unpossible
Antonyms: possible
inevitable
Derived words: ask the impossible
do the impossible
impossibility
impossible bottle
impossible color
impossible dip
impossible dream
impossible drive
impossible event
impossible fork
impossibleness
impossible pie
impossible story
impossible trident
impossible trinity
impossibly
mission impossible
unimpossible
Translations: