impractical

[ im-prak-ti-kuhl ]

adjective

1. not practical or useful.
2. not capable of dealing with practical matters; lacking sense.
3. idealistic.
4. impracticable.

impractical

/ ɪmˈpræktɪkəl /

adjective

1. not practical or workable

   an impractical solution

2. not given to practical matters or gifted with practical skills

   he is intelligent but too impractical for commercial work

Derived Forms

• imˈpractically, adverb
• imˌpractiˈcality, noun

Other Words From

• im·practi·cali·ty im·practi·cal·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of impractical¹

First recorded in 1860–65; im- ² + practical

Example Sentences

Often the best places were inaccessible without a long hike from the road, and that was impractical.

From Popular-Science

Dyson’s 2013 calculation convinced many people that gravitational wave detectors were, at best, impractical probes for learning about quantum gravity.

From Quanta Magazine

The items on this packing list are in the very early stages of development, and in some cases, still pretty impractical and unproven.

From Science News

Most designs so far also require individual lasers to control each qubit, which quickly gets impractical for devices with thousands if not millions of qubits.

From Singularity Hub 

However, in their case, the ship was stationery – which would have been impractical in a real-time scenario with the undulating waves and the ongoing naval maneuvering.

From Realm of History

But one gets the sense that this is impractical in the era of Twitter and 24-7 news coverage.

From The Daily Beast

Though Rabinowitz muses that something like this would not only be impractical but also incite severe backlash.

From The Daily Beast

Du Bois repeatedly defended liberal education against those who saw it as impractical.

From The Daily Beast

Surely he would have found her efforts to effect world peace through art and music a little impractical, and hippy-dippyish?

From The Daily Beast

For so many of these sybaritic recipes are wholly impractical for the modern home chef.

From The Daily Beast

Then life would, to this impractical philosopher, again become worth living.

From Project Gutenberg

Scowlingly Bill thought over one plan after another, and rejected each as impractical.

From Project Gutenberg

The impractical view of life which art seemed to demand of its devotees was enough to arouse suspicion, if not her actual dislike.

From Project Gutenberg

Impractical men have told me that right will always triumph of itself; it needs no fighters to support it.

From Project Gutenberg

I established a protective screen, but realized that to set up a permanent defense would be impractical and even harmful.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• absurd
• illogical
• impossible
• improbable
• quixotic
• speculative
• unattainable
• unreal
• unusable
• unwise
• unworkable
• useless