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Glite Dictionary
🚧 A deadlock 🛣️ A dead-end street
impasse

impasse

1 8.1
A street that ends and has no other exit
  • noun
  • /ˈɪmˌpæs/
: callejón sin salida
  • After exploring the neighborhood, we discovered a charming impasse surrounded by lovely homes.

Sometimes there are impasses, there are dead ends that you know you have to come back out of and go around.

Examples

  • Will they come back when I return from my 90-day impasse?

    Blog text (12)

  • Bourdelle moved into the building whose former address was 16, impasse du Maine in 1885.

    Blog text (3)

  • Sometimes there are impasses, there are dead ends that you know you have to come back out of and go around.

    Gregory B. Sadler - That Philosophy Guy

  • In the impasse, John picks up a lamp and hurls it at Alexei's head.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Pointing in his painting to a line of planes and helicopters, Paul Emile Fils-Aime of Impasse Malo Sathe gave me a precise recounting of events: "About 7:00 A.M. a white plane... big... came first, followed by two in army camouflage.

    Academic text (1996)

  • The children played in the quiet impasse at the end of the street.

  • On our walk, we reached a narrow impasse, where we had to turn back as there was no way further.

Synonyms

dead end
vsimpasse
28 2.7

A street or road that ends and does not go through

focuses on the street's single entrance and exit rather than on onward route
cul-de-sac
vsimpasse
21 4.7

A short street closed at one end with no through traffic

is the general phrase for a street with one entrance and exit
dead-end street
vsimpasse
4 2.1

A street that ends at one side so cars cannot drive through

is about the street having only one entrance and exit rather than traffic flow
blind alley
vsimpasse
4.1

A street closed at one end with only one way in or out

is the term stressing a street's single entrance and exit

Idioms

at an impasse
12 6.3

In a situation where people cannot agree and nothing moves forward

Surface Forms

impasse singular
impasses plural

Etymology

Impasse comes from French parts in- 'not' and passer 'to pass', so it was used for a place with 'no way through'. That's why an impasse can mean a dead-end street with only one entrance and exit.