IMPROBABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does improbable mean? 

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

1. not likely to be true or to occur or to have occurred

2. having a probability too low to inspire belief

3. too improbable to admit of belief

  Familiarity information: IMPROBABLE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPROBABLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not likely to be true or to occur or to have occurred

Synonyms:

improbable; unlikely

Context example:

an improbable event

Similar:

supposed (mistakenly believed)

Antonym:

probable (likely but not certain to be or become true or real)

Derivation:

improbability; improbableness (the quality of being improbable)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Having a probability too low to inspire belief

Synonyms:

improbable; unbelievable; unconvincing; unlikely

Similar:

implausible (having a quality that provokes disbelief)

Derivation:

improbableness (the quality of being improbable)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Too improbable to admit of belief

Synonyms:

improbable; marvellous; marvelous; tall

Context example:

a tall story

Similar:

incredible; unbelievable (beyond belief or understanding)

Derivation:

improbableness (the quality of being improbable)

 Context examples 

Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

This seemed to me to be a very satisfactory and therefore not at all improbable picture.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

If there is anything in my story which you know to be either false or improbable, stop me.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

That is the case as it appears to the police, and improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still.

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

Also, by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid on in his house.

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

We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I could, perhaps, like others, have astonished thee with strange improbable tales; but I rather chose to relate plain matter of fact, in the simplest manner and style; because my principal design was to inform, and not to amuse thee.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an air of delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I begin to think it most improbable: the chances grow less and less; and even if it should, there will be nothing to be remembered by either you or me that we need be afraid of, for I can never be ashamed of my own scruples; and if they are removed, it must be by changes that will only raise her character the more by the recollection of the faults she once had.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)