IMPOLITIC

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does impolitic mean? 

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

1. not politic

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPOLITIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not politic

Context example:

an impolitic approach to a sensitive issue

Similar:

inexpedient; unwise (not appropriate to the purpose)

Also:

inexpedient (not suitable or advisable)

foolish (devoid of good sense or judgment)

Antonym:

politic (marked by artful prudence, expedience, and shrewdness)

 Context examples 

The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty,—he replied, with great feeling,—of dividing, or attempting to divide, two young people long attached to each other, is terrible.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)