INCREDIBLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does incredible mean? 

• INCREDIBLE (adjective)
  The adjective INCREDIBLE has 1 sense:

1. beyond belief or understanding

  Familiarity information: INCREDIBLE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INCREDIBLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Beyond belief or understanding

Synonyms:

incredible; unbelievable

Context example:

the book's plot is simply incredible

Similar:

astounding; dumbfounding; dumfounding (bewildering or striking dumb with wonder)

fabulous (barely credible)

improbable; marvellous; marvelous; tall (too improbable to admit of belief)

undreamed; undreamed of; undreamt; undreamt of; unimagined (not imagined even in a dream)

Also:

flimsy; unconvincing (not convincing)

incredulous (not disposed or willing to believe; unbelieving)

implausible (having a quality that provokes disbelief)

unthinkable (incapable of being conceived or considered)

Attribute:

believability; credibility; credibleness (the quality of being believable or trustworthy)

Antonym:

credible (capable of being believed)

Derivation:

incredibility; incredibleness (the quality of being incredible)

 Context examples 

In shape they were like horrible toads, and moved in a succession of springs, but in size they were of an incredible bulk, larger than the largest elephant.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As to his escaping by that window, it was incredible.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It sounds incredible, for I have not, as far as I know, an enemy in the world.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and excite suspicion.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But if it were inexplicable to me, the appearance of the chart was incredible to the surviving mutineers.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It is so wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost incredible to myself.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion, because he was not so happy as to succeed with you?

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Have just had most incredible and grotesque experience.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

These exciting outcomes show that long-term commitment to basic research has incredible potential for real-world impact, says Anne Sylvester, a program officer in NSF's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems.

(Grains in the rain, National Science Foundation)