Possible means able to happen or be done. Is it possible to change the booking? It is possible that she missed the train. The word makes no promise about how likely the thing is — only that nothing rules it out.
That is the distinction learners need: possible is about permission from reality, probable is about the odds, and a great many mistakes come from using possible where likely was meant. Watch the grammar too. It is possible to do something and it is possible that something happens are both correct; a person is never possible to do something, which is the commonest error of all. And as soon as possible is a fixed phrase worth learning whole, along with its short form ASAP.
1adjectivepossibleAble to happen or be done.~35%
“It is possible to walk there in twenty minutes.”
synonyms: feasible, achievable
2adjectivetrueThat may be true, though nobody yet knows.~41%
“A possible explanation is that the letter never arrived.”
3adjectivegreatAs great or as small as can be managed.~24%
“We want the best possible outcome for everyone.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
possible is a state of being able to happen.
Latin possibilis comes from posse, to be able — the same verb behind power, potent and possess. Possible has always meant within somebody's power, and the modern sense simply widened the somebody to include the world.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁es-
Latin
possibilis — possible
Old French
possible
Middle English
possible
English, today
possible
Built from
From Middle English possible, from Old French possible, from Latin possibilis (“possible”), from possum (“to be able”); see power. Displaced acumendlic, from ācumendlīċ. Compare also mihtelīċ, which was cognate with mahtlīh and máttulígr. Compare also mogelijk and möglich.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA