impossibility

noun
/ɪmˌpɒsɪˈbɪliti/UK/ɪmˌpɑsɪˈbɪliti/US

Etymology

From Middle French impossibilité, from Latin impossibilitās. By surface analysis, im- + possibility and impossible + -ity.

  1. derived from impossibilitās
  2. borrowed from impossibilité

Definitions

  1. Something that is impossible.

    • Meeting the deadline is an impossibility; there is no way we can be ready in time.
    • 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.
    • My dear Tom, you are going to undertake an Impossibility. If you knew my Father, you would never think of obtaining his Consent.
  2. The quality of being impossible.

    • [L]et the mutinous winds / Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun; / Murdering impossibility, to make / What cannot be, slight work.
    • [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 […]
  3. The state of being unable to do something.

    • Here by this petition whan we say, Leade vs not into temptation, we learne to know our own impossibilitie and infirmitie, namely that we bee not able of our owne selues to with∣stand this great and mightye enemye the deuill.
    • […] out of their own torment, they [the damned] see the felicitie of the saints; togither with their impossibility of attayning it.
    • Many texts present him [Satan] with sadness, partly from his incapability of salvation, for want of a Saviour; partly from his impossibility to repent, because of his implacable and invincible malice.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at impossibility. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01impossibility02impossible03difficult04easy05requiring06requirement07necessity08indispensable09cannot

A definitional loop anchored at impossibility. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at impossibility

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA