impervious
Americanadjective
-
not permitting penetration or passage; impenetrable.
The coat is impervious to rain.
-
incapable of being injured or impaired.
impervious to wear and tear.
-
incapable of being influenced, persuaded, or affected.
impervious to reason; impervious to another's suffering.
- Synonyms:
- closed, invulnerable
adjective
-
not able to be penetrated, as by water, light, etc; impermeable
-
not able to be influenced (by) or not receptive (to)
impervious to argument
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of impervious
From the Latin word impervius, dating back to 1640–50. See im- 2, pervious
Compare meaning
How does impervious compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
An impervious surface is one that can't be penetrated. The word is often followed by "to," as in "His steely personality made him impervious to jokes about his awful haircut." Most of the sentences you'll run across using impervious will be followed by the word "to" and a noun. Things are often described as being impervious to physical assaults like heat, water, bullets, weather, and attack, but just as frequently to less tangible things, like reason, criticism, pain, and pressure. The word comes from Latin: in- + pervius, meaning "not letting things through." A common synonym is impermeable.
Vocabulary lists containing impervious
Tier 2 Words for the SBAC ELA Items
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Lord of the Flies
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Essential Academic Vocabulary for High School Students, List 4
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In recent weeks, Hezbollah has increasingly relied on fiber-optic drones — which are both low-cost and impervious to jamming — to harass Israeli positions.
From Los Angeles Times • May 26, 2026
The cable makes the drone impervious to electronic jamming.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 1, 2026
In fact, Roger Pielke, a longtime climate scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes U.S. emissions have been remarkably impervious to presidential terms: relative to economic output, they have declined steadily for decades.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 13, 2025
But ferocious fire in recent years, fueled by climate change, has proved fatal to the trees experts once thought were impervious to flame.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 8, 2025
The outlet was blocked with some barrier, but not of stone: soft and a little yielding it seemed, and yet strong and impervious; air filtered through, but not a glimmer of any light.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
