English Dictionary |
INCONCEIVABLE
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
IPA (US): |
Dictionary entry overview: What does inconceivable mean?
• INCONCEIVABLE (adjective)
The adjective INCONCEIVABLE has 1 sense:
Familiarity information: INCONCEIVABLE used as an adjective is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Totally unlikely
Synonyms:
impossible; inconceivable; out of the question; unimaginable
Similar:
unthinkable (incapable of being conceived or considered)
Derivation:
inconceivability; inconceivableness (the state of being impossible to conceive)
Context examples
The bottle was full of it, and it is inconceivable that the first two glasses were clear and the third heavily charged with it.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It will always be to me a monstrous, inconceivable thing, a horrible nightmare.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
It is inconceivable that this fellow could have made two such vindictive enemies as these appear to be without knowing of it.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs and thus traversed the snows with inconceivable speed.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Now, after thirteen years, I will give the true details of this inconceivable affair to the public.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He had told her the most extraordinary, the most inconceivable, the most unwelcome news; and she could think of nothing else.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
For a space of possibly three seconds of time she had been dazed and paralysed by the horrible and inconceivable form in which the unexpected had made its appearance.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
"It is a fast-growing plant, but it is surely inconceivable that this body could have been here while the canes grew to be twenty feet in length."
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
To his mind this was power unusual, power inconceivable and beyond the natural, power that was godlike.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
They fought on, through exhaustion and beyond, to exhaustion immeasurable and inconceivable, until the crowd of brutes, its blood-lust sated, terrified by what it saw, begged them impartially to cease.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Learn English with... Proverbs |
"All that glisters is not gold." (William Shakespeare)
"Lamb in the spring, snow in the winter." (Armenian proverb)
"Cards play and gamblers brag." (Corsican proverb)