| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | hopelessness |
| Synonyms: | contrariety, difficulty, failure, futility, impracticability, impracticality, unattainability, unfeasibility, unlikelihood, unreasonableness, unworkability |
| Antonyms: | feasibility, possibility, practicality, probability |
| Concept: | Impossibility. |
| Category: | Degrees of Evidence |
| Synonyms: |
-nouns
impossibility; what cannot, what can never be; sour grapes; hopelessness.
-verbs
be impossible; have no chance whatever., attempt impossibilities; square the circle, get blood from a stone, get blood from a turnip; look for a needle in a haystack; skin a flint; make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, make bricks without straw; have nothing to go upon; weave a rope of sand, build castles in the air, prendre la lune avec les dents, extract sunbeams from cucumbers, set the Thames on fire, fetch water in a sieve, milk a he-goat into a sieve, catch a weasel asleep, rompre l'anguille au genou, be in two places at once.
-adjectives
impossible; not possible; absurd, contrary to reason; unlikely; unreasonable; incredible; beyond the bounds of reason, beyond the bounds of possibility, beyond the realm of possibility; from which reason recoils; visionary; inconceivable (improbable); prodigious (wonderful); unimaginable, inimaginable; unthinkable., impracticable, unachievable; unfeasible, infeasible; insuperable; unsurmountable, insurmountable; unattainable, unobtainable; out of reach, out of the question; not to be had, not to be thought of; beyond control; desperate (hopeless); incompatible; inaccessible, uncomeatable, impassable, impervious, innavigable, inextricable; self- contradictory., out of one's power, beyond one's power, beyond one's depth, beyond one's reach, beyond one's grasp; too much for; ultra crepidam.
-phrases
the grapes are sour; non possumus; non nostrum tantas componere lites [Vergil]; look for a needle in a haystack, chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin [Fr.]; il a le mer à
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| Antonyms: | possibility |
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