impalpable
/ɪmˈpalpəb(ə)l
/adjective
1Unable to be felt by touch: an impalpable ghost...
- It stands to reason then that intangible means not tangible, unable to touch, or impalpable.
- Yet the apparent paradox of associating touch with something that is intangible and impalpable is not as odd as it might seem.
- Bold choices are attenuated by combination with impalpable chiffon.
Synonyms
intangible, insubstantial, incorporeal, unable to be touched, imperceptible to the touch;
indefinable, elusive, hard to define/describe, undescribable
rare immaterial, unbodied, discarnate
1.1Not easily comprehended: how would anyone come to a decision about something so impalpable as personhood?...
- Not that I would mind selling millions of books to people with impalpable senses of humor, but I've actually been reading his column to find out which clichés and bad jokes to avoid.
- What I meant by that, I think, was that something in the atmosphere of these places - indefinable, impalpable - clustered life into articulate and significant relationships.
- Their music surely carries that similar impalpable layer of emotion.
Derivatives
impalpability
/ noun ...- Stephen's vision of the bird-girl at the close of this section illustrates both the continuing power of the regressive force of silence and impalpability, and the power of the epiphanic mode to undermine this regression.
impalpably
- Ever since Charles Darwin noted ‘the falling of impalpably fine dust‘while crossing the Atlantic during his famous scientific voyage aboard the Beagle, seafarers and researchers have observed African particulates far out to sea.
Origin
Early 16th century: from French, or from late Latin impalpabilis, from in- 'not' + palpabilis (see palpable).