unthinkable
/ʌnˈθɪŋkəb(ə)l
/adjective
(Of a situation or event) too unlikely or undesirable to be considered a possibility: it was unthinkable that John could be dead (as noun the unthinkable) the unthinkable happened—I spoke up...
- Thankfully Ferguson was one of them too, and the unthinkable defeat became merely an unpalatable draw.
- That any Trade Union could ever be expelled from the Party was once unthinkable.
- What are the frontlines of defence against such an unthinkable catastrophe?
Synonyms
unimaginable, inconceivable, unbelievable, incredible, beyond belief, highly unlikely, unheard of, implausible, illogical, impossible, beyond the bounds of possibility
highly undesirable, not to be considered, unconscionable, out of the question, absurd, unreasonable, preposterous, ludicrous, outrageous, shocking
informal not on
Derivatives
unthinkability
- In drawing on Levi's dream, the unthinkability of genocidal murder is starkly acknowledged as a human response rather than an aberrant denial or a mere lack of empathy.
- The unthinkability of a history of Assam survived and has been reinforced in postcolonial India.
- They haven't bemoaned their almost uniformly rock-solid dependability, or the unthinkability of audio or video connections going down once they'd been made in such systems.
unthinkably
[as submodifier]: a land of unthinkably vast spaces...
- A few days ago, I had this post about high school English in Australia, in which I commented that what the Australian students go through is probably unthinkably and impossibly difficult in the United States.
- At the moment, packages and information are shooting around the world at incredible rates, unthinkably fast and with a phenomenal success rate.
- Opening the top of a burial place to house a headstone is heartless and cruel and an unthinkably immoral way of covering the council over personal injury claims.