impossibility — English Dictionary

Noun

1. Something that is impossible.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

   Examples

   Meeting the deadline is an impossibility; there is no way we can be ready in time.

   More examples (1)

   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.

   More examples (3)

   The ancient teachers of this science […] promised impossibilities, and performed nothing.

   Breathing had become difficult, swallowing acutely painful, and sleep an impossibility—for whenever he dropped off, the patient would choke and wake up frantically struggling for air.

   And what actinic, mind-wrenching form could the countermeme take? How could human hands assemble something so devastatingly powerful and hold it steady; what human mind could wield it without exploding from the inside out? What would deploying that concept in anger do to human ideatic space? How far out from the solution is modern memetic science, a year, a century? What insane impossibility has Hughes just committed himself to?

2. The quality of being impossible.

   Usage

   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   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,

   [L]et the mutinous winds / Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun; / Murdering impossibility, to make / What cannot be, slight work.

   More examples (1)

   [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 […]

   But the utter impossibility of succeeding in this desperate task soon became evident.

   More examples (1)

   Ever since the war, in the complete impossibility of getting houses, parts of the population have overflowed into supposedly temporary quarters in fixed caravans.

3. The state of being unable to do something.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Obsolete
   • Uncountable

   Synonyms

   inabilityincapabilityhelplessness

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   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.

   More examples (1)

   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.

Noun

1. incapability of existing or occurring

   Synonyms

   impossibleness

   Antonyms

   possibility

   Broader terms

   nonexistencenonentity

2. an alternative that is not available

   Synonyms

   impossible action

   Broader terms

   optionalternativechoice