Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Impossible to move.
  • adjective Incapable of movement.
  • adjective Impossible to alter.
  • adjective Unyielding in principle, purpose, or adherence; steadfast.
  • adjective Incapable of being moved emotionally.
  • adjective Law Of or relating to things, such as trees and buildings, attached to real property.
  • noun One that cannot move or be moved.
  • noun Law Things that are attached to real property.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Incapable of being moved or displaced; too heavy or firm to be moved; firmly fixed; fast.
  • Not to be moved from a purpose; steadfast; fixed; that cannot be induced to change or alter: as, a man who remains immovable.
  • Incapable of being altered or shaken; unalterable; unchangeable: as, an immovable purpose or resolution.
  • That cannot be affected; not impressible; impassive; unfeeling.
  • In law, not liable to be removed; permanent in place; real, as distinguished from personal.
  • noun That which cannot be moved; specifically, in law, land, or any appurtenance fixed to or running with the land.
  • noun Also immoveable.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun That which can not be moved.
  • noun (Civil Law) Lands and things adherent thereto by nature, as trees; by the hand of man, as buildings and their accessories; by their destination, as seeds, plants, manure, etc.; or by the objects to which they are applied, as servitudes.
  • adjective Incapable of being moved; firmly fixed; fast; -- used of material things.
  • adjective Steadfast; fixed; unalterable; unchangeable; -- used of the mind or will.
  • adjective Not capable of being affected or moved in feeling or by sympathy; unimpressible; impassive.
  • adjective (Law.) Not liable to be removed; permanent in place or tenure; fixed. See Immovable, n.
  • adjective (Med.) an appliance, like the plaster of paris bandage, which keeps fractured parts firmly in place.
  • adjective (Eccl.) feasts which occur on a certain day of the year and do not depend on the date of Easter; as, Christmas, the Epiphany, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Incapable of being physically moved; fixed.
  • adjective Steadfast in purpose or intention; unalterable, unyielding.
  • adjective Not capable of being affected or moved in feeling; impassive.
  • noun That which can not be moved; something which is immovable.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not able or intended to be moved
  • noun property consisting of houses and land

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From im- +‎ movable.

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Examples

  • I must have sat in immovable traffic for an hour thinking to myself that there is no way this city is going to successfully pull off an Olympic Games, until I finally gave up and headed home.

    2008 July 02 « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • I must have sat in immovable traffic for an hour thinking to myself that there is no way this city is going to successfully pull off an Olympic Games, until I finally gave up and headed home.

    Happy Canada And Carbon Tax Day « Unambiguously Ambidextrous 2008

  • Strictly speaking, however, a fief was usually defined as immovable property whose usufruct perpetually conceded to another under the obligation of fealty and personal homage.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14: Simony-Tournon 1840-1916 1913

  • And it turneth no more to this or to that, but it willeth always One, and that is God; to Him it cleaveth alway, without any going back; and therefore is it called immovable, for it suffereth not itself to be moved from God.

    The Following of Christ. c. 1300-1361 1910

  • But if the earth also moves, the true and absolute motion of the body will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space; partly from the relative motion of the ship on the earth; and if the body moves also relatively in the ship; its true motion will arise, partly from the true motion of the earth, in immovable space, and partly from the relative motions as well of the ship on the earth, as of the body in the ship; and from these relative motions will arise the relative motion of the body on the earth.

    The pre-history of Einstein’s relativity « Skulls in the Stars 2008

  • But for those with the FOX News logo permanently burned into the lower right hand side of their TV screen -- aka the immovable 35 percent -- none of this information meant a thing.

    Adam McKay: And Then There Were Thirty... 2008

  • Immovable if we choose to make them immovable, that is.

    Archive 2007-09-01 Kay Olson 2007

  • Immovable if we choose to make them immovable, that is.

    I think it's safe to say. . . Kay Olson 2007

  • And we must acknowledge that as there are two kinds of knowledge, so there are two kinds of being corresponding to them; the one uncreated, indestructible, immovable, which is seen by intelligence only; the other created, which is always becoming in place and vanishing out of place, and is apprehended by opinion and sense.

    Timaeus 2006

  • He speaks of a “nondiscriminatory knowledge” realized in action as “immovable wisdom”: “It [immovable wisdom] moves as the mind is wont to move: forward or back, to the left, to the right, in the ten directions and to the eight points; and the mind that does not stop at all is called immovable wisdom.”

    Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy Nagatomo, Shigenori 2006

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