| Library / English Dictionary |
IMPOSSIBILITY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An alternative that is not available
Synonyms:
impossibility; impossible action
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("impossibility" is a kind of...):
alternative; choice; option (one of a number of things from which only one can be chosen)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "impossibility"):
impossible (something that cannot be done)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Incapability of existing or occurring
Synonyms:
impossibility; impossibleness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("impossibility" is a kind of...):
nonentity; nonexistence (the state of not existing)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "impossibility"):
inconceivability; inconceivableness (the state of being impossible to conceive)
unattainableness (the state of being unattainable)
Antonym:
possibility (capability of existing or happening or being true)
Derivation:
impossible (not capable of occurring or being accomplished or dealt with)
Context examples:
Uppercross, the necessity of some one's going to Uppercross; the news to be conveyed; how it could be broken to Mr and Mrs Musgrove; the lateness of the morning; an hour already gone since they ought to have been off; the impossibility of being in tolerable time.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
St. John—you know him—would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Jo dropped a kiss on the top of Mr. Laurence's bald head, and ran up to slip the apology under Laurie's door, advising him through the keyhole to be submissive, decorous, and a few other agreeable impossibilities.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“Oh! no, the meeting is certainly to-day,” was the abrupt answer, which denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton's side.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The young gal was re-engaged; but on the stipulation that she should only bring in the dishes, and then withdraw to the landing-place, beyond the outer door; where a habit of sniffing she had contracted would be lost upon the guests, and where her retiring on the plates would be a physical impossibility.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no will—and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case—have been treated at her decease as under intestacy.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget: The ancient teachers of this science, said he, promised impossibilities and performed nothing.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Catherine, with all the earnestness of truth, expressed her astonishment at such a charge, protesting her innocence of every thought of Mr. Thorpe's being in love with her, and the consequent impossibility of her having ever intended to encourage him.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
His profession qualified him, his disposition lead him, to talk; and That was in the year six; That happened before I went to sea in the year six, occurred in the course of the first evening they spent together: and though his voice did not falter, and though she had no reason to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke, Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind, that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Had it been ten, Elinor would have been convinced that at that moment she heard a carriage driving up to the house; and so strong was the persuasion that she DID, in spite of the ALMOST impossibility of their being already come, that she moved into the adjoining dressing-closet and opened a window shutter, to be satisfied of the truth.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
