implausible
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of implausible
Explanation
Something that's implausible is farfetched or unlikely. If it's 3 pm and you still have to study for three exams and write an essay before midnight, it’s implausible that you’ll also have time to watch a movie. The adjective implausible breaks down into im, meaning “not,” and plausible, meaning "likely." So it simply means "not likely." Implausible ideas or stories usually get high marks for creativity, but they're just too crazy to be believable. But as philosopher René Descartes noted, “One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.”
Vocabulary lists containing implausible
Grade 9, List 6
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The Namesake
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Summer of the Mariposas
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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.
“A federal assessment that presents impacts derived primarily from implausible high emissions pathways as ordinary planning futures is inconsistent with these principles,” it says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026
When the skin has collapsed into your palm like a deflated balloon, you lift the box grater and discover an almost implausible amount of ruby pulp underneath it.
From Salon ● Aug. 1, 2026
Ms. Goldberg supplies another dose of sugar with an ending that’s simultaneously sweet, predictable and implausible.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
"AI memory demand remains ferocious, supply remains tight, and the major memory makers are enjoying margins that would have looked implausible only a few years ago."
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
The weird, implausible reception for Milo began at the airfield, where civilian laborers who recognized him halted in their duties respectfully to gaze at him with full expressions of controlled exuberance and adulation.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
