What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Penetrate vs Impenetrable - What's the difference?

penetrate | impenetrable |

As a verb penetrate

is to enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.

As an adjective impenetrable is

impenetrable.

penetrate

English

(Penetration)

Verb

(penetrat)
  • To enter into; to make way into the interior of; to pierce.
  • Light penetrates darkness.
  • * {{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.
  • I could not penetrate Burke's opaque rhetoric.
  • * Ray
  • things which here were too subtile for us to penetrate
  • To affect profoundly through the senses or feelings; to move deeply.
  • to penetrate one's heart with pity
  • * M. Arnold
  • The translator of Homer should penetrate himself with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style.
    (Shakespeare)
  • To infiltrate an enemy to gather intelligence.
  • To insert the penis into an opening, such as a vagina or anus. (rfex)
  • Derived terms

    * penetration * penetrable

    impenetrable

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Not penetrable.
  • The fortress is impenetrable , so it cannot be taken.
  • * '>citation
  • The avalanche spread and stopped, locking everything it carried into an icy cocoon. It was now a jagged, virtually impenetrable pile of ice, longer than a football field and nearly as wide.
  • (figuratively) ; inscrutable.
  • Business jargon makes this document impenetrable , I can't understand it.

    Antonyms

    * penetrable