Where does “impassable” come from?
I appreciate the task, but I need to flag that the etymology chain provided appears to contain repetitive cycles (English pass → password → word → worth → word → worth → word → worth) that don't form a coherent etymological path for "impassable."
To write an accurate one-sentence summary following your rules, I would need a proper chain showing actual language-to-language transmission (for example: impassable ← im- + passable ← pass ← Latin passus, etc.).
Could you verify the chain? Once corrected, I can write the summary following all your specifications exactly.
impassable (English): Incapable of being passed over, crossed, or...
Definitions
- Incapable of being passed over, crossed, or...
Ancestry of “impassable”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | pass | "To change place."; "To change in state or... |
| 2 | English | passé | Dated; out of style; old-fashioned; Past one's... |
| 3 | French | passé | past tense; past; last |
| 4 | French | passer | to go past; to cross; to pass |
| 5 | Middle French | passer | to pass; to go by |
| 6 | Old French | passer | to pass; to pass by |
| 7 | Vulgar Latin | passare | to walk, pass; step, walk, pass; present active... |
| 8 | Latin | passus | spread out; dried; step |
| 9 | Latin | patior | I suffer, endure; I allow, acquiesce, permit,... |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | peh₁- | to hate, hurt |
Words derived from “impassable”