IMPENETRABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does impenetrable mean? 

• IMPENETRABLE (adjective)
  The adjective IMPENETRABLE has 3 senses:

1. not admitting of penetration or passage into or through

2. permitting little if any light to pass through because of denseness of matter

3. impossible to understand

  Familiarity information: IMPENETRABLE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPENETRABLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not admitting of penetration or passage into or through

Context example:

impenetrable rain forests

Similar:

dense; thick (hard to pass through because of dense growth)

Antonym:

penetrable (admitting of penetration or passage into or through)

Derivation:

impenetrability (the quality of being impenetrable (by people or light or missiles etc.))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Permitting little if any light to pass through because of denseness of matter

Synonyms:

dense; heavy; impenetrable

Context example:

impenetrable gloom

Similar:

thick (relatively dense in consistency)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Impossible to understand

Context example:

impenetrable jargon

Similar:

incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)

Derivation:

impenetrableness (incomprehensibility by virtue of being too dense to understand)

 Context examples 

Impenetrable by light; neither transparent nor translucent.

(Opaque, NCI Thesaurus)

His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The thunder ceased; but the rain still continued, and the scene was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The paper over each window was impenetrable to light, and a blue curtain was drawn across the glass work in front.

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

Lestrade had learned by more experiences than he would care to acknowledge that that brain could cut through that which was impenetrable to him.

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

Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Yates, who was trying to make himself agreeable to Julia, found her gloom less impenetrable on any topic than that of his regret at her secession from their company; and Mr. Rushworth, having only his own part and his own dress in his head, had soon talked away all that could be said of either.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Sometimes I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature’s formation, but on this point he was impenetrable.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)