impossibility
Etymology
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Etymology
From Middle French impossibilité, from Latin impossibilitās.
Pronunciation Nounimpossibility
- Something that is impossible.
- Meeting the deadline is an impossibility; there is no way we can be ready in time.
- 1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), John Milton, Tetrachordon: Expositions upon the Foure Chief Places in Scripture, which Treat of Mariage, or Nullities in Mariage. […], London: [s.n.], →OCLC ↗, page 17 ↗:
- God commands not impossibilities; and all the Ecclesiastical glue, that Liturgy, or Laymen can compound, is not able to soder up two such incongruous natures into the one flesh of a true beseeming Mariage.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC ↗, book XIV, page 104 ↗:
- My dear Tom, you are going to undertake an Impossibility. If you knew my Father, you would never think of obtaining his Consent.
- 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter II, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC ↗, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010001278701;view=1up;seq=89 page 73]:
- The ancient teachers of this science […] promised impossibilities, and performed nothing.
- (uncountable) The quality of being impossible.
- 1548, Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, London: Richard Grafton, Henry VIII, year 15,
- After long reasonyng, there wer certain appoynted, to declare the impossibilite of this demaunde to the Cardinal,
- c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act V, scene iii]:
- [L]et the mutinous winds / Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun; / Murdering impossibility, to make / What cannot be, slight work.
- 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC ↗:
- [H]e threw himself upon her, and his back being now towards me, I could only take his being ingulph'd for granted, by the directions he mov'd in, and the impossibility of missing so staring a mark […]
- 1838, [Edgar Allan Poe], chapter XXII, in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗, page 173 ↗:
- But the utter impossibility of succeeding in this desperate task soon became evident.
- 1937, George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, New York: Harcourt, Brace, published 1958, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 61:
- Ever since the war, in the complete impossibility of getting houses, parts of the population have overflowed into supposedly temporary quarters in fixed caravans.
- 1548, Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancastre and Yorke, London: Richard Grafton, Henry VIII, year 15,
- (obsolete) The state of being unable to do something.
- Synonyms: inability, incapability, helplessness
- 1607, Joseph Hall, Holy Observations, Lib. 1, London: Samuel Macham, 59, p. 85:
- […] out of their own torment, they [the damned] see the felicitie of the saints; togither with their impossibility of attayning it.
- (something that is impossible) See also Thesaurus:impossibility
- (antonym(s) of “something that is impossible”): certainty, inevitability, possibility; See also Thesaurus:possibility
- French: impossibilité
- French: impossibilité
- German: Unmöglichkeit
- Italian: impossibilità
- Portuguese: impossibilidade
- Russian: невозмо́жность
- Spanish: imposibilidad
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.002
