noun
definition
An impossibility
example
Late 14th century: “Madame,” quod he, “this were an impossible!” — Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, Canterbury Tales
adjective
definition
Not possible; not able to be done or happen.
example
It is difficult, if not impossible, to memorize 20,000 consecutive numbers.
definition
(of a person) Very difficult to deal with.
example
You never listen to a word I say – you're impossible!
definition
Imaginary
example
impossible quantities, or imaginary numbers
Examples of impossible in a Sentence
It was impossible to keep Helen quiet.
It was impossible to make out what he wanted.
She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider in how far she was to blame for what had happened.
It was impossible to know what was going on in Señor Medena's mind by observing his expression.
That was impossible to fake.
It was impossible to doubt it now.
Often in a snow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village.
No, it's impossible, she thought.
But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or move to another place, because of the crowd.
Without this, it is impossible to farm at scale.
Sofia's words freed them from deep within his mind, and Dusty's hammering at the facts made it impossible for him to silence them as he wanted to.
It was quite impossible to understand these sounds.
All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of events remain unexecuted.
It was now, however, impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran with her through the garden seeking another way out.
His heart began to slow its impossible race.
On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was impossible to pass any judgment.
Like Alex, it was impossible to guess what was going on in his mind by the expression on his face.
It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do to let him die on the road.
It would not ache--it would be well--if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to get rid of them.
He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting, but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the time he joined the army.
No, it's impossible! thought Nicholas, still shouting with a hoarse voice.
To the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye.
It was impossible to talk.
In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for him.
Get on! when it was impossible to go any faster.
It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle.
It was impossible to empathize with her.
Their relationship was growing, but finding a place to cuddle was nearly impossible.
It was impossible for Dean to get close enough to Billy to question him.
It was impossible not to respond.
Add to this the light rainfall on the plateau and a lack of forests, and we have conditions which make large rivers impossible.
A silk mill was erected here in 1770, and there was also an attempt to foster the cotton trade, but the lack of means of communication made the undertaking impossible.
Beck maintains that the real meaning of Kant's theory is idealism; that of objects outside the domain of consciousness, knowledge is impossible, and hence that nothing positive remains when we have removed the subjective element.
But just because it is an old dream, doesn't mean it is an impossible one.
It was at first impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at Bagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal.
But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves--in which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened-- even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was taking place.
It would not take place because the commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but in their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its inevitable abandonment.
So it is impossible to understand by what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver was a profound one.
It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible to block its path.
It would have been impossible not to.
It was impossible to hear what he was saying with so many people speaking.
Spencer's " instability of the homogeneous " is perhaps an attempt to perform the impossible (First Principles, chap. xix.).
John Locke, the real father of English philosophy, took the field against what he regarded as Descartes's impossible programme of " Innate Ideas."
At the present moment it is impossible to draw up any definition, based on broad anatomical or developmental characters, by which any one of Cuvier's great groups shall be separated from all the rest.
It is customary to speak of the disastrous effect, of cold winds, snow, hail and frost, lightning, &c., under the heading of atmospheric influences, which only shows once more how impossible it is to separate causes individually.
The former prohibition made it impossible far the unfortunate people to sell their goods which hence fell to the Inquisition.
All of them lie in a state of ruin, and, from the disposition of the drums of the columns, it is impossible to suppose that their fall was due to any other cause than an earthquake.
This is in line with the provisions in the Constitution of the United States regarding the protection of property, but the difficulty in applying the principle to the railway situation lies in the fact that costs have to be met by averaging the returns on the total amount cf business done, and it is often impossible, in specific instances, to secure a rate which can be considered to yield a fair return on the specific service rendered.
In the midst of all this civil strife the Pharisees and all who were preoccupied with religion found it almost impossible to discern what they should do to please God.
But economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the provinces of from the markets of the capital.