impossibility

Roget category 471

4. Words relating to the intellectual faculties
› 4.3. Materials for reasoning
››

#471. Impossibility

noun

impossibility etc. adj. — what cannot, what can never be — sour grapes — hopelessness etc. 859.

verb

be impossible etc. adj. — have no chance whatever.
attempt impossibilities — square the circle, wash a blackamoor white — skin a flint — make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, make bricks without straw — have nothing to go upon — weave a rope of sand, build castles in the air, prendre la lune avec les dents [Fr.], extract sunbeams from cucumbers, set the Thames on fire, milk a he-goat into a sieve, catch a weasel asleep, rompre l'anguille au genou [Fr.], be in two places at once.

adjective

impossible — not possible etc. 470 — absurd, contrary to reason — unlikely — unreasonable etc. 477 — incredible etc. 485 — beyond the bounds of reason, beyond the bounds of possibility, beyond the realm of possibility — from which reason recoils — visionary — inconceivable etc. (improbable) 473 — prodigious etc. (wonderful) 870 — unimaginable, inimaginable^† — unthinkable.
impracticable unachievable — unfeasible, infeasible — insuperable — unsurmountable^†, insurmountable — unattainable, unobtainable — out of reach, out of the question — not to be had, not to be thought of — beyond control — desperate etc. (hopeless) 859 — incompatible etc. 24 — inaccessible, uncomeatable^†, impassable, impervious, innavigable^†, inextricable — self-contradictory.
out of one's power, beyond one's power, beyond one's depth, beyond one's reach, beyond one's grasp — too much for — ultra crepidam [Lat.].

phrase

the grapes are sour — non possumus [Lat.] — non nostrum tantas componere lites [Lat.] [Vergil]; look for a needle in a haystack, chercher une aiguille dans une botte de chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin [Fr.] — il a le mer +a boire^†.

The content on this page comes straight from Project Gutenberg Etext of Roget's Thesaurus No. Two, which consists of the acclaimed work by Peter Mark Roget augmented with more recent material. Some changes were made to the formatting for improved readability.

Bold numbers signify related Roget categories. A dagger symbol (†) indicates archaic words and expressions no longer in common use.

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