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impossible figure

British

noun

Also called: Escher figure. a picture of an object that at first sight looks three-dimensional but cannot be a two-dimensional projection of a real three-dimensional object, for example a picture of a staircase that re-enters itself while appearing to ascend continuously

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

It did not matter; the Reichsbank has more than 1,182,038,536,000,000 more paper marks, and at the present rate they may even reach the impossible figure of a quintillion, i.e., 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 marks.

From Time Magazine Archive

It was clearly an impossible figure for her to accept, considering that her share would only amount to about $3,700,000,000.

From Time Magazine Archive

Barbie may not be everyone's favorite companion--detractors love to hate her plastic perfection--but the fashion doll with the impossible figure has long been the most popular girl at Mattel.

From Time Magazine Archive

This seemingly impossible figure could not be verified.

From Time Magazine Archive

The war was won when May was made to see him as an impossible figure, comic, on the make—as perhaps he was, but no more so than when Lydia herself had received him.

From Manslaughter by Miller, Alice Duer

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023