Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Impossible to comprehend or grasp fully.
- adjective So unlikely or surprising as to have been thought impossible; unbelievable.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Incapable of being conceived, or realized in the imagination; incredible; inexplicable.
- An expression which conveys no conception whatever, but is mere gibberish, is not called
inconceivable , but unintelligible. The word inconceivable (see alsounconceivable ) is used in the following senses in philosophy: Involving a contradiction in terms, such as the idea of a non-existent being. - Unacceptable to the mind because involving a violation of laws believed to be well established by positive evidence, as a perpetual motion.
- Unimaginable by man on account of an inseparable association, although not perhaps involving any contradiction nor even physically impossible, as the perception of color without extension.
- Unimaginable to a particular person from novelty, as the idea that parallel straight lines meet at infinity.
- Capable of being conceived only by a negative or relaive notion, such as the idea of infinity.
- Incredible; not to be imagined as believed in by any man, as the supposition of an event undetermined by a cause.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Not conceivable; incapable of being conceived by the mind; not explicable by the human intellect, or by any known principles or agencies; incomprehensible.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective unable to be
conceived ,unbelievable
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective totally unlikely
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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It would be more correct, in fact, to restrict the use of the term inconceivable to the former case: for although we cannot think, or construe to ourselves logically, an efficient cause or mind, such a cause is so far from being inconceivable to reason that reason expressly demands and affirms it.
Theism: The Witness of Reason and Nature to an All-Wise and Beneficent Creator. 1823-1886 1855
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What's inconceivable is if you use the password saving feature, all your passwords are displayed in your settings with no encryption and no password protection to view all your information.
Google Chrome 2 Brings New Features And Serious Speed | Lifehacker Australia 2009
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It's not so inconceivable, is it -- at least in the context of a Broadway-musical romance -- that a refrain might strike lovers as magically fresh or revelatory every time it was repeated?
Tom Gliatto: A Complaint About Sondheim Tom Gliatto 2010
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It's not so inconceivable, is it -- at least in the context of a Broadway-musical romance -- that a refrain might strike lovers as magically fresh or revelatory every time it was repeated?
Tom Gliatto: A Complaint About Sondheim Tom Gliatto 2010
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Harrington was throwing in inconceivable flourishes, while Malemute Kid, utterly abandoned, had seized the broom and was executing mad gyrations on his own account.
The Wife of a King 2010
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Harrington was throwing in inconceivable flourishes, while Malemute Kid, utterly abandoned, had seized the broom and was executing mad gyrations on his own account.
The Wife of a King 2010
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But hieroglyphics and histories which seem to pass the bounds of belief I call inconceivable; yet even among these last there are many which our method enables us to investigate, and to discover the meaning of their narrator.
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First steps have been taken in the conversion of military industries, and what seemed inconceivable is happening: recent Cold War adversaries are establishing cooperation in this area.
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Hamilton's use of the word inconceivable, and finds that it is applied in three senses, in one of which all that is inexplicable, including the first principles, is held to be inconceivable.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery 1840-1916 1913
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Harrington was throwing in inconceivable flourishes, while Malemute Kid, utterly abandoned, had seized the broom and was executing mad gyrations on his own account.
The Wife of the King 1900
seanahan commented on the word inconceivable
I do not think this word means what you think it means.
December 14, 2006
Prolagus commented on the word inconceivable
Hee hee! See here.
September 11, 2008
uselessness commented on the word inconceivable
Whoever created the Vizzini account to record a pronunciation, I think I'm in love with you.
December 4, 2009
oroboros commented on the word inconceivable
See unbearable.
March 10, 2010