impassable
\ɛ̃.pa.sabl\
The verdict
“impassable” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qu’on ne peut passer, franchir.
Corpus desk
Index FR-impassable · impassable · French
impassable · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "I" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | impassable |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɛ̃.pa.sabl\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « impassable » en français
Rare enough to double-check
impassable is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ɛ̃.pa.sabl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qu’on ne peut passer, franchir.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for impassable, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is impassable, spelled I-M-P-A-S-S-A-B-L-E.
Definition
- 1Qu’on ne peut passer, franchir.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how impassable appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
« Laissez-moi passer. Soyez gentil. Désolé, voyez. La porte est trop petite. Elle est tout à fait impassable. Vous voulez dire impossible. Non. Impassable. Rien n’est impossible. » — (Alice au pays des merveilles)
Les Pyrénées étaient impassables, gardées par un Bourbon d’Espagne.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.