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improbable

[im-prob-uh-buhl]

Example Sentences

adjective

not probable; unlikely to be true or to happen: Rain is improbable tonight.

Origin:
1590–1600; < Latin improbābilis. See im-², probable

Related forms

im·prob·a·bly, adverb

im·prob·a·ble·ness, noun

su·per·im·prob·a·ble, adjective

su·per·im·prob·a·ble·ness, noun

su·per·im·prob·a·b·ly, adverb

Can be confused: impossible, impracticable, impractical, improbable.

Synonyms
questionable, doubtful, implausible.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Improbable is an LSAT word you need to know.

So is contingency. Does it mean:

dependence on chance or on the fulfillment of a condition

first or highest in rank, importance or value

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Example Sentences

One should not confuse the improbable with the impossible.

Yes, and about a thousand other improbable threats too.

Elaborate battle scenes compensate for an improbable plot in this sometimes underrated pirate film.

EXPAND

One should not confuse the improbable with the impossible.

Yes, and about a thousand other improbable threats too.

Elaborate battle scenes compensate for an improbable plot in this sometimes underrated pirate film.

Even with all of these improbable ducks lining up there's another crucial one that counts.

But practically everything about the deal makes it seem improbable.

At first glance, this might seem a little improbable.

But if he took his burros with him, there's nothing improbable about that final trip eastward.

Actually this seems highly improbable and highly implausible.

Other motivations such as harming rivals are not likely to maximise profits, and are therefore improbable.

The steep headlands are an intense, improbable green.

One way to cope with those emotions is to belittle warnings of a pandemic as improbable.

Direct military intervention remains improbable because of its likely regional repercussions.

And the speed of their purported ascent, through a week of consistently bad weather, seemed equally improbable.

Each of these events had been dismissed by those who were to lose pots of money as so improbable as to be safely disregarded.

Yet, in view of his boast that he never feels stress, that seems improbable.

One could say that every artistic genre has its occasional masterpieces, even the more improbable genres.

To modern minds the idea that men would go to war over, for example, transubstantiation seems improbable.

Though possible in theory, it is highly improbable that this would ever become a practical strategy to extend length of life.

Across the country, police departments are preparing for a possibility once thought improbable and now feared to be inevitable.

Yet both, it seems, can find relief through the same improbable source: an insurance plan.

Inside, however, it's filled with improbable and amazing inventions.

There are several reasons why a resort to this means of aiding the striking street car employes is improbable.

Birds of paradise perch on an improbable branch of the avian family tree, the flashy cousins of straitlaced ravens and crows.

They arrive at a panoramic view of the desert filled with improbable spires and a thousand shades of brown.

The agent said he considered the dispatch improbable on its face.

Her re-election is striking given how improbable it once seemed.

Highly improbable conditions are required to start inflation.

But the best parts have the funny, improbable vitality of a bad joke carried way too far.

It ranks these stories according to how probably it thinks each story is, but of course even improbable events sometime happen.

When the program began, such progress seemed improbable to many observers.

The recycled brick walls twist and turn in improbable curves that keep opening into new spaces.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

improbable (ɪmˈprɒbəb^əl)

—*adj*
	not likely or probable; doubtful; unlikely

improba'bility

—n

im'probableness

—n

im'probably

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Matching Quote

"History is nothing but a procession of false Absolutes, a series of temples raised to pretexts, a degradation of the mind before the Improbable."

-E.M. Cioran

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