How to use: adjectives for probability
To speak about probability we can use adjectives such as probable, likely, possible and certain. It’s a short list, and one that learners can quite easily memorise and use.
The opposites are easy to get too, simply by using prefixes:
- possible ⇒ impossible
- likely ⇒ unlikely
- probable ⇒ improbable.
Scale of probability
Let’s look at scale of probability, going from inevitable (meaning ‘certain to happen’, ‘unavoidable’) to impossible.
Example sentences
- After the team lost ten matches in a row, It was inevitable that they would fire the coach.
[100 per cent, unavoidable] - The weather forecast says that a big storm is likely later this week.
[a high probability] - Most people think it’s unlikely we’ll all own self-driving cars within the next five years.
[a low probability] - It’s impossible to stay long under water without oxygen.
[zero probability, cannot happen]
Adverbs to intensify
We can use an adverb such as highly or very before the adjective to intensify the probability.
You can see below that not all the adverbs work with each adjective:
Be careful – quite is usually a moderate word (quite nice, quite good). However, when we say ‘quite impossible’, quite means ‘totally’ or ‘completely’.
Examples of adverb + adjective
When we add adverbs, we get sentences like these:
- I think it’s highly unlikely that he’ll invite me to his party: he doesn’t like me.
- It’s quite probable that we will lose customers if we increase our prices.
There are, of course, other ways to speak about probability in English. You can check out modal verbs here, and I’ll look at adverbials for probability in a future post. Probably 😉
Radek - January 17, 2019, 6:49 pm
Very useful!!
Anonymous - May 3, 2021, 12:11 pm
Indeed sir.
Jeffrey Levine - November 12, 2020, 3:28 am
Sorry, I have a problem relating to probability with these terms. The terms at the top and bottom of the list both imply a high degree of confidence…. in the one case that something WILL occur, and the other that it WILL NOT occur. e.g. It is inevitable that I will not win the lottery, because I haven’t bought a ticket. OR It is impossible for me to win the lottery, because I haven’t bought a ticket.
The next terms up or down from these two convey a lesser degree of certainty. (Although I’m not sure exactly how the word “CERTAIN” is supposed to imply uncertainty, but whatever…. This leaves us with the two middle terms, which DO imply a difference in probability, where probable means more probable than possible, or conversely, possible means less possible than probable.
I just proposed a set of five adjectives that imply a continuum of probability from low to high.
PROPOSED
PLAUSIBLE
POSSIBLE
PROBABLE
PROVED
There’s a bit of a theme there, but it’s highly improbable that you didn’t notice it.
I borrowed a number of these terms from the nomenclature for mineral resource classification, if they seem a bit awkward. But this is actually a tricky topic to tackle, depending on whether you’re looking at the continuum from the bottom up or from the top down.
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