Cannot vs Impossible - What's the difference?
cannot | impossible |
not (am/is/are unable to).
Am/are/is forbidden or not permitted to
* 1668 December 19, , “Mr.'' Alexander Seaton ''contra'' Menzies” in ''The Deci?ions of the Lords of Council & Se??ion I (Edinburgh, 1683),
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=
, volume=189, issue=2, page=10, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Not possible; not able to be done or happen.
* 1865 , (Lewis Carroll), (w, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
* 13 March 1962 ,
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
, volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= (colloquial, of a person) Very difficult to deal with.
(math, dated) imaginary
an impossibility
* Late 14th century': “Madame,” quod he, “this were an '''impossible !” — Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Franklin's Tale’, ''Canterbury Tales
As nouns the difference between cannot and impossible
is that cannot is something that cannot be done while impossible is {{cx|obsolete|lang=en}} an impossibility.As a verb cannot
is can not (am/is/are unable to).As an adjective impossible is
not possible; not able to be done or happen.cannot
English
Verb
(head)page 575
- The Pupil after his Pupillarity, had granted a Di?charge to one of the Co-tutors, which did extingui?h the whole Debt of that Co-tutor, and con?equently of all the re?t, they being all correi debendi , lyable by one individual Obligation, which cannot be Di?charged as to one, and ?tand as to all the re?t.
Karen McVeigh
US rules human genes can't be patented, passage=The US supreme court has ruled unanimously that natural human genes cannot be patented, a decision that scientists and civil rights campaigners said removed a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation.}}
Usage notes
Both the one-word form cannot' and the two-word form '''can not''' are acceptable, but '''cannot''' is more common (in the , three times as common). The two-word form is better only in a construction in which '''not is part of a set phrase, such as 'not only... but (also)': ''Paul can not only sing well, but also paint brilliantly .Synonyms
* can'tStatistics
*Anagrams
* English auxiliary verb forms ----impossible
English
Alternative forms
* inpossible (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)- Nothing is impossible , only impassible.
- Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
Our banks are out of control, passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […]. Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible , there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.}}
- impossible quantities, or imaginary numbers