Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. That cannot be dissolved: insoluble matter.
- adj. Difficult or impossible to solve or explain; insolvable: insoluble riddles.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- That cannot be loosed or undone.
- Not soluble; incapable of being dissolved.
- Incapable of being solved or explained; not susceptible of solution or explanation.
- n. A thing which is insoluble; a problem that cannot be solved.
Wiktionary
- adj. that cannot be dissolved
- adj. that cannot be solved; insolvable
- adj. that cannot be explained; mysterious or inexplicable
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not soluble; in capable or difficult of being dissolved, as by a liquid.
- adj. Not to be solved or explained; insolvable.
- adj. obsolete, obsolete Strong.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. admitting of no solution or explanation
- adj. (of a substance) incapable of being dissolved
- adj. without hope of solution
Etymologies
- From Latin insolubilis (in- + solubilis). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English insolible, from Latin īnsolūbilis : in-, not; see in-1 + solvere, to loosen; see soluble. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The insoluble form or gun-cotton is entirely _insoluble_ in nitro-glycerine.”
“Those which we call insoluble generally differ from the rest only in degree.”
“For transparent colored bottles, instead of sponge, the perfumers use what they call insoluble crystal salts (sulphate of potass).”
The Art of Perfumery And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants
“The foods that contain insoluble fiber foods are almost all plants, Dr. Sheth said, because humans haven't evolved the enzymes necessary to break down some plant cell walls.”
Science Question from a Toddler: Why is poop brown? Boing Boing
“Old World was hopelessly entangled in insoluble problems.”
“Carbonate of lime, itself, in the forms we have mentioned, is commonly called insoluble in water.”
“Richard Lavenham, an English contemporary of Wyclif, perhaps put the prevailing optimism best (Spade 1975, p. 93; Heytesbury 1979, p. Just as the bond of love is sometimes called insoluble, not because it can in no way be untied (sit solubilis) but because it can be untied [only] with difficulty, so a proposition is sometimes called insoluble, not because it is not solvable but because it is solvable [only] with difficulty.”
“The main reason for fritting is to make glaze materials insoluble, which is possible if the frit materials are mixed in the right proportion.”
“The fluid from which they have been precipitated contains two substances, crenic and apocrenic acids, while the soil still retains what has been called insoluble humus.”
“As far as the manufacture of explosive bodies is concerned, the two forms of nitro-cellulose used and manufactured are gun-cotton or the hexa - nitrate (once regarded as tri-nitro-cellulose), which is also known as insoluble gun-cotton, and the soluble form of gun-cotton, which is also known as collodion, and consists of a mixture of several of the lower nitrates.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘insoluble’.
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SCIE - EU nomenclature
All the scientific words found in the official EU nomenclature. For the screening I used Vocabgrabber of the Visual Thesaurus.
abdominal, absorbent, accelerator, accumulator, acebutolol, acetamide, acetanilide, acetate, acetic acid, acetone, acetous, acetyl and 1171 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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wackyvorlon's list
herein, execrable, extirpate, ameliorate, sawbuck, obstreperous, truculent, festinate, exiguous, exsanguinate, vehement, vex and 135 more...
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Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
By David Foster Wallace
emeritus, apian, fenestration, prophylax, pelisse, niggardly, lallating, pica, simulacrum, floridly, acquiesced, truculent and 114 more...
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Mixtures and Solutions
solvent, solute, solution, dissolve, mixture, substance, heterogeneous, homogeneous, soluble, pure substance, solubility, evaporation and 9 more...
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renorover's Words
ludicrous, orgasm, photosynthesis, postmortem, clitoris, hallucinatory, incredulous, irascible, intercourse, fuck, nebulous, cantankerous and 11 more...
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Paradise or Oblivion
disparity, conceive, ominous, bigotry, surmount, aberrant, prevalent, treaty, obsolescence, insoluble, subservient, equilibrium and 1 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for insoluble.
jwjarvis When the total tax burden grows beyond a bearable size, the problem of devising taxes that will not discourage and disrupt production becomes insoluble. Oct 1, 2010