imposablevsimpossibleWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“imposable” and “impossible” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#19,317
“imposable” frequency rank
#878
“impossible” frequency rank
20195
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature imposable impossible
Definition Qui peut être soumis aux impositions. Qui ne peut être ; qui ne se peut faire.

Where the eye mixes imposable and impossible

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence.

9 ch
imposable
10 ch
impossible

Visual trap between imposable and impossible

A purely visual mix-up. imposable (\ɛ̃.po.zabl\) and impossible (\ɛ̃.pɔ.sibl\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20195, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

imposable is recorded at frequency rank #19,317, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.po.zabl\. impossible is at rank #878, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔ.sibl\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 20195, this pair ranks #369,501 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of imposable vs impossible

Shared letters: beilmops. Private to "imposable": a. Private to "impossible": -.

"imposable" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCV  ·  "impossible" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • imposableimmposable · imopsable · impoasble · imposabble · imposabel · imposablle · imposalbe · imposbale
  • impossibleimmpossible · imopssible · imposible · imposisble · impossbile · impossibble · impossibel · impossiblle

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "imposable" and "impossible" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ̃.po.zabl\ versus \ɛ̃.pɔ.sibl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "imposable" or "impossible" show up more?
"impossible" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #878 in our French list, against #19,317 for "imposable". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "imposable" and "impossible" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "imposable" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "impossible" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #369,501 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "imposable" and "impossible" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "imparable vs imposable". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #369,501 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list