impracticable
[im-prak-ti-kuh-buh l]
- not practicable; incapable of being put into practice with the available means: an impracticable plan.
- unsuitable for practical use or purposes, as a device or material.
- (of ground, places, etc.) impassable.
- (of persons) hard to deal with because of stubbornness, stupidity, etc.
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Origin of impracticable
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for impracticable
Historical Examples
That mountain wall, impracticable as it seems, we have to scale.
The Roof of FranceMatilda Betham-Edwards
The advice was good, but in the present temper of the army it was felt to be impracticable.
Stories from ThucydidesH. L. Havell
He was altogether splendid, massive, overpowering, and impracticable.
Little DorritCharles Dickens
Flight was humiliating and dreadful, but to remain in England was impracticable.
Beaux and Belles of EnglandMary Robinson
The ideal is as impracticable as it is puerile and retrograde.
Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3)John Morley
impracticable
- incapable of being put into practice or accomplished; not feasible
- unsuitable for a desired use; unfit
- an archaic word for intractable
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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
Word Origin and History for impracticable
adj.
"incapable of being done," 1670s, from assimilated form of in- (1) "not, opposite of" + practicable. Earlier in a sense of "impassable" (1650s).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper