What's the difference between impenetrable and impermeable?

Impenetrable


Definition:

  • (a.) Incapable of being penetrated or pierced; not admitting the passage of other bodies; not to be entered; impervious; as, an impenetrable shield.
  • (a.) Having the property of preventing any other substance from occupying the same space at the same time.
  • (a.) Inaccessible, as to knowledge, reason, sympathy, etc.; unimpressible; not to be moved by arguments or motives; as, an impenetrable mind, or heart.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) During the entire process the passage between the lumen and the intercellular space remained blocked by the tight junctions, as shown by their impenetrability to ferritin.
  • (2) Veering between a patronising video , a vague report and impenetrable financial data does not amount to openness and accountability.
  • (3) Similar results were obtained with subcutaneous or intraperitoneal thymus grafts and with thymus grafts within cell-impenetrable diffusion chambers.
  • (4) On the other hand, the performance of a material that is liquid-proof is absolute--it is impenetrable and can be accurately described as impervious.
  • (5) In a 70-page document that was largely ignored and almost completely impenetrable, he said the US intended to treat cyberspace as a military battleground.
  • (6) This last phenomenon appears to precede the entry of some axons into the neuropil and suggests that the glia limitans may not necessarily represent an impenetrable barrier to the passage of regenerating axons into the CNS.
  • (7) It appears that the major part of the exclusion volume is due to the collagen-fibril as a rod and the dextran coil as an impenetrable sphere.
  • (8) Some of the games are based around recognisable sports (like football), others around ancient samurai conflicts – but whatever the theme, the nature of the action is absolutely impenetrable to the casual onlooker.
  • (9) Many of the particles could therefore pass freely through tightly woven fabrics with pores up to 10-15 micrometer which might seem to be impenetrable to whole corneocytes, typically larger than 30 X 40 micrometer in the hydrated state.
  • (10) QSI's intentions are no doubt honest but if players as important as goalkeepers can be owned by anonymous third parties in impenetrable offshore companies the potential for match fixing is clear.
  • (11) The more complex a system, the more unintelligible and impenetrable is the map of possible side effects.
  • (12) Spontaneous postoperative expulsion of an IUD resulted in blockage or distortion of the anastomosis in 1 monkey; and in another the anastomosis was patent for a least 5 months, but later became impenetrable.
  • (13) Lactoperoxidase-catalyzed iodination (LCI) was carried out under impenetrable conditions in intact electroplax (where protein exposure on the external surface is monitored) and in split electroplax (where total protein labeling on both the external and internal monolayers of the plasma membrane bilayer is monitored).
  • (14) For 45 minutes, Arjen Robben twisted and turned with the ball only to find himself confronted by an impenetrable thicket of blue-shirted Brazil defenders.
  • (15) And viewed again in this mood, Libeskind's building, with its blank excoriated surfaces, looks closed to understanding; in material as in spirit, impenetrable.
  • (16) Subsequent chemical analysis of sperm-penetrable and impenetrable samples indicated that the concentrations of mucus nondialyzable solids (NDS), mucins, and soluble proteins were significantly higher in impenetrable specimens.
  • (17) The mites ate the germ before the endosperm, leaving an impenetrable layer of crushed endosperm cells between these regions.
  • (18) Two decades after Tutu made it a shining city of defiance amid seemingly impenetrable darkness, Cape Town is finding economic liberation harder than the political kind.
  • (19) Insensitivities at 190 and 100 nm were common to all five types of spores, indicating that these wavelengths were particularly impenetrant and absorbed by the outer layer materials.
  • (20) By announcing a huge programme of bond purchases , much bigger relative to the eurozone bond market than the quantitative easing implemented in the United States, Britain, or Japan, the ECB president, Mario Draghi, erected the impenetrable firewall that had long been needed to protect the monetary Union from a Lehman-style financial meltdown.

Impermeable


Definition:

  • (a.) Not permeable; not permitting passage, as of a fluid. through its substance; impervious; impenetrable; as, India rubber is impermeable to water and to air.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On the other hand, changing pH on only one side by addition of an impermeant buffer fails to induce any change in n. At the single-channel level, pH had an effect both on the unitary conductance, doubling it in going from pH 4.5 to 8.2, as well as on the fraction of time the channels stay open, F(v).
  • (2) EAI can penetrate a membrane, whereas IAI is membrane impermeant.
  • (3) Both the internal and external solutions were prepared with impermeant anions.
  • (4) Replacement of Cl-o with other impermeant anions, such as gluconate and methylsulphate, had a similar action on contractile activity as for Ise-replacement.
  • (5) When sulfhydryl groups present at the cell surface were blocked with cell-impermeant sulfhydryl reagent, the initial phase of disulfide cleavage was inhibited, indicating that cleavage began at the cell surface.
  • (6) To explain the opposite effects of GTP in the absence and presence of oxalate, it is proposed that GTP activates a transmembrane conveyance of Ca2+ between oxalate-permeable and -impermeable compartments.
  • (7) Measurement of (140)La uptake by the living skin shows that lanthanum moves across the external surface of the skin readily, into and out of a compartment that has a limited capacity and is bounded on its internal side by a barrier impermeable to lanthanum.
  • (8) When permeant anions in the bath (Cl-) were replaced with relatively impermeant anions (gluconate, MOPS, propionate, or Hepes), the Po vs. voltage relationship was shifted by approximately -35 mV.
  • (9) Currents through both the voltage-activated potassium channels, IK,V, and the calcium-activated potassium channels, IK,Ca, can be blocked by the membrane-impermeant K channel blocker tetraethylammonium (TEA).
  • (10) The outcome is a belief that the Earth is being slowly strangled by a gaudy coat of impermeable plastic waste that collects in great floating islands in the world's oceans; clogs up canals and rivers; and is swallowed by animals, birds and sea creatures.
  • (11) Local hypoxia due to a diffusion block by the impermeable pericapillary cuffs, partially due to a reduction of capillaries in the superficial layers.
  • (12) The connective hyperpolarizes in the propionate saline, whereas the abdominal region undergoes the transient depolarization that is expected when a permeant anion (Cl) is replaced with an impermeant one (propionate).
  • (13) In forest, removal of olfactory substances from the human skin, by vigorous washing and application of petroleum jelly, or by wearing impermeable clothing, greatly reduced the numbers of flies attracted.
  • (14) By the use of double-chamber tissue culture flasks, with the 2 cell populations separated by a cell impermeable membrane, it was found that T-T interaction does not require cell contact and is thus mediated by factor(s).
  • (15) This discrepancy could be ascribed to impermeability, as E. coli cells with modified permeability show greater sensitivity to minosaminomycin.
  • (16) The perinephric membrane in the Lepidoptera is impermeable to the dyes.
  • (17) The relatively membrane-impermeant pyridoxal phosphate labels all proteins of the intact myelin except basic protein.
  • (18) Monobromobimane and dibromobimane are effective on intact cells while red cell membranes may be impermeable to the positively charged monobromotrimethylammoniobimane, the latter being effective only on lysed cells.
  • (19) This failure was shown to be due to the impermeability of mycobacteria to these drugs by use of "membrane-active" agents along with the antibiotics in growth inhibition studies.
  • (20) Chloride dependence was assessed by replacing chloride with the impermeant anion gluconate, or by addition of the anion transport blocker 4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'-disulfonic acid (DIDS).