impasse

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
Paul McCartney says the impasse is apparently between Beatles representatives and record label EMI.

View all »
Definitions (5)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A road or passage having no exit; a cul-de-sac.
  2. noun A situation that is so difficult that no progress can be made; a deadlock or a stalemate: reached an impasse in the negotiations.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (48)

  • Whatever the reason, I knew at once that this impasse was the single most important thing taking place in the entire valley Love, my harness squeaked. —  F ;SF; - vol 093 issue 01 - July 1997
  • But as long as Msuya was reluctant to damage his prize—and as long as the odd gravitational effects from the lifeboat's drive continued to make a boarding dangerous for both ships—the impasse was a remarkably stable entity. —  Spinneret
  • Looks like the impasse was breached and the funding is moving forward. —  Field of Schemes
  • I don't mean to sound trite, but I believe our impasse is a result of your lack of understanding of the patent system. —  Techdirt
  • The charitable explaination of this impasse is that the so called Left leadership is stupid. —  Kafila
More examples »
 

Tags

impasse hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 84 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French : in-, not (from Latin in-; see in-1) + passe, a passing (from Old French, from passer, to pass; see pass).
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a month.

Recently looked up

cryptography · antediluvian · Formosan · hard-pressed · euro

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich