But difficult does not mean impossible.

Often the other is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible.

Securitization made debt restructuring difficult, if not impossible.

For without that, one difficult journey would be not merely difficult but close to impossible.

If a child has limited exposure to language before a certain age, language is difficult or impossible to obtain.

The combination of all these factors contributed to an acceleration of government debt accumulation and made debt service difficult or impossible.

Formulation of such targets was a difficult but not an impossible task.

Regime change is no panacea it can be difficult to achieve and nearly impossible to consolidate. Negotiations cannot resolve all or even most conflicts.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to imagine the U.S. economy growing at a rate of 3 percent or more in the decade ahead.

A formula for the integrand may be known, but it may be difficult or impossible to find an antiderivative that is an elementary function.

It will be difficult, but not impossible, to re establish confidence in the central government.

It is technically difficult and practically impossible to formulate specific technical parameters in this regard.

Now let me take you for a moment to what's widely regarded as the world's most difficult conflict, or the most impossible conflict, is the Middle East.

A blog called Untranslatable is setting out to provide language lovers with a selection of words from around the world that are difficult or impossible to translate.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to identify some extraordinary measures that would meet these tough requirements.

Things may seem wrong details, like the painting on a wall, not being able to talk or difficulty reading (purportedly reading in lucid dreams is often difficult or impossible,) or, oddly, normal types of foods gone missing.

PARIS To find a glimmer of hope on the Israel Palestine question has become difficult, if not impossible.

This is difficult and smacks of protectionism, but it is neither impossible nor necessarily inimical to healthy globalization.

Ascribing universal attributes to a broad generation is difficult, and some observers believe that it is inherently impossible.

This will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the domestic private sector to finance the budget deficit indefinitely.

But WTO membership has made it difficult, if not impossible, to resort to these traditional forms of industrial support.

It is believed that treaties on labour rights remained in force, despite practical difficulties inherent to the war which made enforcement difficult or impossible, their multilateral character again regarded as important.

The pessimists mainly Russian historians claimed that Russia would find it difficult, if not impossible, to overcome its legacy of autocracy.

But the credibility needed to anchor expectations is difficult sometimes even impossible to achieve when two targets are being pursued simultaneously.

The digital dark age is a possible future situation where it will be difficult or impossible to read historical electronic documents and multimedia, because they have been in an obsolete and obscure file format.

Peter Diamandis Probably the most difficult thing that I had to do was raise the capital for this. It was literally impossible.

In the domestic setting, physical violence is often accompanied by sexual abuse, making it difficult, if not impossible, to have safe sex.

This is a difficult task under the most favorable circumstances. The European Central Bank s low inflation target (2 ) renders it virtually impossible, as it implies requisite downward adjustment in wages and prices of 10 or more.

It is impossible to master English in a year or so.

And as a doctor, I know that once a disease progresses to an advanced stage, achieving a cure can be difficult, if not impossible.

But this anticipation is also a problem for Obama, as it will be difficult and in some instances impossible for him to meet expectations.

Good. Then I shall attempt the impossible or at least the improbable.

The implication is that it may be impossible to know the exact number of staff performing procurement functions in the decentralized organizations, which in turn makes it difficult to measure the cost of procurement or other performance dimensions.

If this opportunity to rebuild trust is squandered, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for Europe to address its fiscal, economic, and institutional deficits.

The wide area effects of these weapons make it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between military objectives and civilians in a populated target area.

But I also suspect that their heads are cautioning against spending a lot of money in an attempt to accomplish a difficult, if not impossible, task.

Such apathy makes my task as Russia's ombudsman, an office charged by the State Duma (parliament) with protecting political rights in Russia, difficult, if not impossible.

Once their allotted time is up or their funds run out they tend to pack up and leave. Even for NGOs that stick around, determining their relief efforts impact in the middle of a crisis is difficult, if not impossible.

Further, diagrams may be messy or impossible to draw when the number of objects or morphisms is large (or even infinite).

Once these steps are put in place, it is extremely difficult for a pro democracy movement to survive but not impossible if counter pressure is applied correctly.

To be sure, it will be increasingly difficult though far from impossible to meet the world s growing demand for food, and to do this in sustainable ways.

Either the Chinese public is impossible to please, or Western executives are hopelessly wrong.

Blocking electronic sites in Arab and Islamic countries is not something new or impossible.

It is impossible to predict an exact prognosis during pregnancy or the neonatal period.

A law that curtails the abuse of press power while protecting its freedom to expose the abuse of political power would be difficult, but not impossible, to frame.