impracticable

Etymology

From im- + practicable.

adj

  1. not practicable; impossible or difficult in practice
  2. (of a passage or road) impassable
  3. (obsolete, of a person or thing) unmanageable
    And yet this tough impracticable heart / Is govern'd by a dainty-finger'd girl ; […] 1713, Nicholas Rowe, The Fair Penitent, published 1797
    H. is a person of extraordinary health & vigor, of unerring perception, & equal expression; and yet he is impracticable, and does not flow through his pen or (in any of our legitimate aqueducts) through his tongue. c. 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, published 1960, page 18

noun

  1. (obsolete) an unmanageable person
    They were not allowed, of course, to join us in the sitting room, partly that their practice might not be disturbed, but principally, that I was looked upon as an utter impracticable. 1829, Henry Barkley Henderson, The Bengalee, or Sketches of Society and Manners in the East, page 13
    The strict constructionists had dwindled to a few impracticables, headed by John Randolph. 1867, James Parton, Famous Americans of Recent Times, page 83

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