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.
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
It’s not the most likely scenario, but it’s not totally implausible either.
From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026
The broader biographical facts are obeyed, but “Amadeus” is fundamentally ahistorical, and sometimes implausible: It is to be trusted only as television.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2026
They also show transformations experts say are scientifically implausible in such short timeframes.
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
And when these were employed, the idea that the only human occupants of one-third of the earth’s surface had changed little for thousands of years began to seem implausible.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
