far-fetched

The judge continued: "The claimant maintained a far-fetched and indeed a false case that the articles were not substantially true, by pursuing allegations of dishonesty and bad faith against almost all of the defendant's truth witnesses."

"Considering what the Taliban have done over the past four years, it was not far-fetched to expect them to impose changes on the curriculum," she said.

Add in damage to island economies and soaring maintenance bills for ferries that should have been replaced by now, a figure of a billion pounds is not far-fetched.

But perhaps it isn’t too far-fetched.

And why might that be less far-fetched than it sounds?