Impale vs Penetrate - What's the difference?
impale | penetrate |
to pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake.
more generally, to pierce (something) with any long, pointed object.
To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.
* {{quote-book, year=1879, title=The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph
, author=Th Du Moncel, page=166, publisher=Harper
, passage=He takes the prepared charcoal used by artists, brings it to a white heat, and suddenly plunges it in a bath of mercury, of which the globules instantly penetrate the pores of charcoal, and may be said to metallize it.}}
(figuratively) To achieve understanding of, despite some obstacle; to comprehend; to understand.
* Ray
To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.
* M. Arnold
To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (rfex)
As verbs the difference between impale and penetrate
is that impale is to pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake while penetrate is to enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.impale
English
Alternative forms
* empale (obsolete)Verb
(impal)penetrate
English
(Penetration)Verb
(penetrat)- Light penetrates darkness.
- I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.
- things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate
- to penetrate one's heart with pity
- The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.
- (Shakespeare)