different between impenetrable vs impenetrably

English

Etymology

From Middle French impenetrable, from Latin impenetrabilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?p?n?t??b?l/, /?m?p?n?t??b?l/
• Hyphenation: im?pen?e?tra?ble

Adjective

impenetrable (not comparable)

1. Not penetrable.

   The fortress is impenetrable, so it cannot be taken.

   • The avalanche spread and stopped, locking everything it carried into an icy cocoon. It was now a jagged, virtually impenetrable pile of ice, longer than a football field and nearly as wide.

2. (figuratively) Incomprehensible; fathomless; inscrutable.

   Business jargon makes this document impenetrable, I can't understand it.

3. Opaque; obscure; not translucent or transparent.

   When night falls, she cloaks the world in impenetrable darkness.

Synonyms

• (not penetrable): impregnable, unfathomable
• (incomprehensible): See also Thesaurus:incomprehensible

Antonyms

• (not penetrable): penetrable, pregnable, fathomable
• (incomprehensible): See also Thesaurus:comprehensible

Translations

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin impenetr?bilis.

Adjective

impenetrable (masculine and feminine plural impenetrables)

1. impenetrable

Further reading

• “impenetrable” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “impenetrable” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “impenetrable” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “impenetrable” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Spanish

Etymology

From Latin impenetr?bilis.

Adjective

impenetrable (plural impenetrables)

1. impenetrable

Further reading

• “impenetrable” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

English

Etymology

impenetrable +? -ly

Adverb

impenetrably (comparative more impenetrably, superlative most impenetrably)

1. In an impenetrable manner or state; imperviously.
   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 6,^[1]

     Far otherwise the inviolable Saints,

     In cubick phalanx firm, advanced entire,

     Invulnerable, impenetrably armed;

   • 1729, Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, London: Lawton Gilliver, Book III, pp. 135-136,^[2]

     And now, on Fancy’s easy wing convey’d,

     The King descended to th’ Elyzian shade.

     There, in a dusky vale where Lethe rolls,

     Old Bavius sits, to dip poetic souls,

     And blunt the sense, and fit it for a scull

     Of solid proof, impenetrably dull.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter 18,^[3]

     She looked at Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to Bingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued however impenetrably grave.

   • 1827, Thomas De Quincey, On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts, Oxford University Press, 2006, edited by Robert Morrison, Postscript, p. 100,

     And apart from the manifold ruffianism, shrouded impenetrably under the mixed hats and turbans of men whose past was untraceable to any European eye, it is well known that the navy (especially, in time of war, the commercial navy) of Christendom is the sure receptacle of all the murderers and ruffians whose crimes have given them a motive for withdrawing themselves for a season from the public eye.

   • 1902, Joseph Conrad, Typhoon, Chapter 4,^[4]

     He could not see it, the inside of the bunker coated with coal-dust being perfectly and impenetrably black; but he heard it sliding and clattering, and striking here and there, always in the neighbourhood of his head.

References

• impenetrably in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• impenetrably in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.