mission impossible
English
Etymology
From the television series Mission: Impossible, first broadcast in the 1960s.
Noun
mission impossible (plural missions impossible or mission impossibles)
- An extremely difficult, if not impossible, task.
- 1995, Jack W. Hunger, Engineering the system solution: a practical guide to developing systems, page xvi,
- Mission impossibles occur continuously.
- 2001, United States Senate Committee on Finance, Globalization and American trade policy: hearing before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, 107th Congress, first session, February 27, 2001, Volume 4, page 23,
- Go out and educate and sell in the course of negotiating basic trade issues the mission impossibles.
- 2005, Dave Ziegler, Achieving Success with Impossible Children: How to Win the Battle of Wills, page 3,
- Ten years ago, Julia Littlebury and I put together a booklet for parents who were doing their best to raise difficult children. […] This would include children in foster care, adoptive homes and many children with one or both biological parents. We called the booklet Mission Impossible — Or Is It? (Ziegler & Littlebury, 1994).
- 2007, Steffen Kolb, Steffen Nurkhardt, Mission Impossible? Media Coverage of Scientific Findings, Hans von Storch, Richard S. J. Tol, Götz Flöser (editors), Environmental Crises, page 65,
- The resulting differences in the demands on scientific versus journalistic information lead to the central question of this paper: Is journalistic work based on scientific findings a mission impossible or is there a way of combining complexity and simplicity in one text?
- 2011, Lorna Wright, Marie-Jo Morelle, 50 Ways to Improve your French: Teach Yourself, unnumbered page,
- Is the sound short, long or nasal? Sounds like mission impossible!
- The pronunciation of words which begin in(n) or im(m) in French can cause difficulties!
- 2012, Mayumi Itoh, Pioneers of Sino-Japanese Relations: Liao and Takasaki, page 204,
- With exceptional capabilities and expertise unmatched by his peers—such as flexible thinking and tactful negotiation skills—Takasaki succeeded in accomplishing many missions impossible that nobody else could.
- 2013, Marshall Fine, Stand by Me, Engage Me, Gary Cameron, Marshall Fine, Sarah Maiter, Karen Frensch, Nancy Freymond (editors, Creating Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare: Congruence with the Everyday Lives of Children and Parents, page 73,
- The impediments to equitable service are: missions impossible, lack of preventive services, need for follow-up, and provider inconsistency.
- 1995, Jack W. Hunger, Engineering the system solution: a practical guide to developing systems, page xvi,
Translations
extremely difficult or impossible task
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References
- “mission impossible”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.