impossibleとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

From Middle English impossible.

発音

• (英国発音) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɒs.ɪ.bəl/, /ɪmˈpɒs.ə.bəl/
• (米国発音) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɑ.sə.bl̩/
• ハイフネーション: im‧pos‧si‧ble

形容詞

impossible (not comparable)

1. Not possible; not able to be done or happen.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     Antonio: What impossible matter will he make easy next?
     Sebastian: I think he will carry this island home in his pocket and give it his son for an apple.
     Antonio : And sowing the kernels of it in the sea bring forth more islands.

   • 1787, “The History of Europe”, in The Annual Register, or A View of the History, Politics, and Literature, for the Years 1784 and 1785, volume XXVII, London: Printed by J[ames] Dodsley, in Pall-Mall, →OCLC, chapter VIII, page 134, column 1:

     It was impoſſible that the queen of France [Marie Antoinette] ſhould not be deeply affected by a conteſt, which ſo cloſely involved her neareſt and deareſt connections, and threatened ſo immediate and perhaps irreparable a breach of the harmony and friendſhip ſubſiſting between them.

   • 1865 November (indicated as 1866), Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC:

     Nothing is impossible, only impassible.

   • 13 March 1962, John F. Kennedy, speech at the White House

     Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

   • 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:

     Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.

   It is difficult, if not impossible, to memorize 20,000 consecutive numbers.

   Sarah thinks that nothing is impossible because things can always somehow happen.

2. (colloquial, of a person) Very difficult to deal with.

   You never listen to a word I say – you're impossible!

   2006, Amanda Palmer (lyrics かつ music), “Delilah”, in Yes, Virginia..., performed by The Dresden Dolls:

   I never met a more impossible girl.

3. (mathematics, dated) imaginary

   impossible quantities, or imaginary numbers

同意語

• nonpossible (一般的ではない用法)
• unhappenable (まれに)
• unpossible (まれに)

反意語

• (not able to be done または happen): possible, inevitable

派生語

名詞

impossible (複数形 impossibles)

1. An impossibility.
   • 1888 November, Joseph Le Conte, “The Problem of a Flying-Machine”, in The Popular Science Monthly, volume 34, page 70:

     In fact, to most people, the real impossibles do not seem impossible, or wonderful, or even difficult at all.

   • 1890, Jean Kate Ludlum, At Brown's: An Adirondack Story, page 15:

     “Ye can't expect impossibles, and Jim hadn't no idee o' takin' yer trunk along of him in ther buggy when he kem hyar this mornin'.

   • 1903, Jonathan Brierley, Problems of Living, page 16:

     For one thing, the Gospel's moral impossibles appear, in this light, not as an objection to Christianity, but as one of its most striking evidences.

   • 1911, J. H. Jowett, “Turning Back”, in Homiletic Review, volume 61, page 392:

     Yes, the church lives for impossibles, and she lives by impossibles, and if she shrinks from impossibles her own vigor will shrink and die.

   • 2000, Kenneth D. Keith, Robert L. Schalock, Cross-cultural Perspectives on Quality of Life, page 292:

     Aristotle (1952), in his Nicomachean Ethics, described the relation between will and choice: a Choice cannot relate to impossibles, and if anyone said he chose them he would be thought silly;

   • 2010, The Journal of Parliamentary Information - Volume 56, page 20:

     Dreams are made out of impossibles. We cannot reach the impossibles by using the analytical minds which are trained to deal with hard information which is currently available.

2. A skateboard trick consisting of a backflip performed in midair.