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Imaginary vs Impracticable - What's the difference?

imaginary | impracticable | Related terms |

Imaginary is a related term of impracticable.


As adjectives the difference between imaginary and impracticable

is that imaginary is existing only in the imagination while impracticable is not practicable; impossible or difficult in practice.

As nouns the difference between imaginary and impracticable

is that imaginary is imagination; fancy while impracticable is (obsolete) an unmanageable person.

imaginary

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • existing only in the imagination
  • * Addison
    • Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer / Imaginary ills and fancied tortures?
  • (mathematics) of a number, having no real part; that part of a complex number which is a multiple of the square root of -1.

    • Derived terms

    * imaginarily * imaginariness

    Noun

    (imaginaries)
  • Imagination; fancy.
  • * 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 324:
    • By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.
  • (mathematics) An imaginary quantity.

    • External links

    * (Imaginary number)

    impracticable

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not practicable; impossible or difficult in practice.
  • Of a passage or road: impassable.
  • (obsolete) Of a person or thing: unmanageable.
  • * {{quote-book, 1713, , The Fair Penitent citation
    • , passage=And yet this tough impracticable heart / Is govern'd by a dainty-finger'd girl ;
  • * {{quote-book, c. 1841, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, year_published=1960 citation
    • , passage=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.}}

    Antonyms

    * (impossible or difficult in practice) practicable

    Derived terms

    * impracticability * impracticableness * impracticably

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An unmanageable person.
  • * {{quote-book, 1829, Henry Barkley Henderson, The Bengalee, or Sketches of Society and Manners in the East citation
    • , passage=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 . }}
  • * {{quote-book, 1867, , Famous Americans of Recent Times citation
    • , passage=The strict constructionists had dwindled to a few impracticables , headed by John Randolph. }}
  • * {{quote-book, 1870, , Society and Solitude citation
    • , passage=Then there are the gladiators, to whom it is always a battle ; 'tis no matter on which side, they fight for victory; then the heady men, the egotists, the monotones, the steriles, and the impracticables .}}