implausible
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- implausibility noun
- implausibleness noun
- implausibly adverb
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.
The team believes this notion of “satiated consumption” is implausible.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 24, 2026
He said while Tina Smith was "in the thrall of McKenna" it was implausible that she did not know what was happening in McKenna's operations.
From BBC • Feb. 12, 2026
But those implausible sci-fi scenarios, believe it or not, are nowhere near the worst-case possibilities.
From Salon • Jan. 18, 2026
Mr. Stephens comments in a way that exalts the passage’s author: “Given this statement, it seems implausible that . . . Marcus bowed to trumpery.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 11, 2026
It is utterly implausible that all of this evidence could have been faked, so I am quite certain that Rome exists.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
