impossibility
English
Etymology
From Middle French impossibilité, from Latin impossibilitās.
Noun
impossibility (countable and uncountable, plural impossibilities)
- Something that is impossible.
- Meeting the deadline is an impossibility; there is no way we can be ready in time.
- (uncountable) The quality of being impossible.
- South
- They confound difficulty with impossibility.
- 1749, [John Cleland], Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: Printed [by Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], OCLC 731622352:
- ...he 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...
- South
- (obsolete) Inability; helplessness.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Latimer to this entry?)
Synonyms
- (something that is impossible): See also Thesaurus:impossibility
Antonyms
- (something that is impossible): certainty, inevitability, possibility; See also Thesaurus:possibility
Translations
The quality of being impossible
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