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IMPENETRABLE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Impossible to understand
Example:
impenetrable jargon
Classified under:
Similar:
incomprehensible; uncomprehensible (difficult to understand)
Derivation:
impenetrableness (incomprehensibility by virtue of being too dense to understand)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not admitting of penetration or passage into or through
Example:
impenetrable rain forests
Classified under:
Similar:
dense; thick (hard to pass through because of dense growth)
Antonym:
penetrable (admitting of penetration or passage into or through)
Derivation:
impenetrability (the quality of being impenetrable (by people or light or missiles etc.))
Sense 3
Meaning:
Permitting little if any light to pass through because of denseness of matter
Example:
impenetrable gloom
Synonyms:
dense; heavy; impenetrable
Classified under:
Similar:
thick (relatively dense in consistency)
Context examples:
So we rode back to her little cottage at Highgate, where we found the following short note, which had arrived by that morning's post from Mr. Micawber: My dear Madam, and Copperfield, The fair land of promise lately looming on the horizon is again enveloped in impenetrable mists, and for ever withdrawn from the eyes of a drifting wretch whose Doom is sealed!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Alighting at the small wayside station, we drove for some miles through the remains of widespread woods, which were once part of that great forest which for so long held the Saxon invaders at bay—the impenetrable weald, for sixty years the bulwark of Britain.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I have seen, he said, the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
