Impalpable
adj ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Incapable of being touched or felt; incorporeal, intangible.
"But here thou canst not handle aught, neither make the folk ware of thee, not though thou shout thy throat hoarse. For thou and I walk here impalpable and invisible, as it were two dreams walking."
- 2 Not able to be perceived, or able to be perceived only with difficulty; insubstantial, thin.
"On the benches lay figures covered with yellow linen, on which a fine and impalpable dust had gathered in the course of ages, but nothing like to the extent that one would have anticipated, for in these deep-hewn caves there is no material to turn to dust."
- 3 Not easily grasped (mentally) or understood.
"What is happiness, anyhow? Is this one of its hours, or the like of it?—so impalpable—a mere breath, an evanescent tinge?"
- 1 imperceptible to the senses or the mind wordnet
- 2 not perceptible to the touch wordnet
- 3 incapable of being perceived by the senses especially the sense of touch wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Nature, both in her palpable and impalpable aspects, may be said to be the book of life wherein are recorded the movements, the expressions, and the diacritics of life."
Etymology
From Middle French impalpable, from Medieval Latin impalpabilis. See im- + palpable.
More for "impalpable"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.