IMPOSSIBILITY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Impossibility

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/ɪmpˌɔsɪbˈɪlɪti/ Listen

noun

Impossibility n. (pl. impossibilities)

The quality of being impossible; impracticability. "They confound difficulty with impossibility."

An impossible thing; that which is not possible; that which can not be thought, done, or endured. "Impossibilities! O, no, there's none."

Inability; helplessness. (R.)

Logical impossibility, a condition or statement involving contradiction or absurdity; as, that a thing can be and not be at the same time. See Principle of Contradiction, under Contradiction.

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Etymology of 'Impossibility'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Impossibility" Quotes from Famous Books

... benefactor. After all, perhaps, under such circumstances, his economy is excusable, and he must have great strength of mind to refuse what the poor devils whose cases he wins by his devotion offer him. He is indignant at the way other lawyers speculate on the possibility or impossibility of poor creatures, unjustly sued, paying for the costs of their defence. Oh! he'll succeed in the end. I shouldn't be surprised to see that fellow in some very brilliant position; he has tenacity, honesty, and ...

— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... flexible or flaccid, from Khansbending inwards, i.e. the mouth of a water-skin before drinking. Like Mukhannas, it is also used for an effeminate man, a passive sodomite and even for a eunuch. Easterns still believe in what Westerns know to be an impossibility, human beings with the parts and proportions of both sexes equally developed and capable of reproduction; and Al-Islam even provides special rules for them (Pilgrimage iii. 237). We hold them to be Buffon's fourth class of (duplicate) monsters belonging essentially ...

— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... "of the Gardens'' were conspicuous. Pausanias says (v. 10. 8) that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia (see GREEK ART), but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. At Pergamum there was discovered in 1903 a copy of the head of the Hermes "Propylaeus'' of Alcamenes (Athenische Mittheilungen, 1904, p. 180). As, however, the deity is represented in an archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much ...

— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... among themselves the narrow, dry cave. There the animals were practically penned in. They agreed that a great killing could be made there, but the impossibility of distinguishing between the bulls and the cows deterred them. ...

— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... common in the mouths of the more serious anti-clericals of the beginning of the century—the increase of Religious Orders, the domineering tendency of all ecclesiastics in the enjoyment of temporal power, the impossibility of combating supernatural arguments, the hostility of the Church to education—down even to the celibacy of the clergy. He paused for breath as they turned ...

— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

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