impossibility
/ɪmˌpɑsɪˈbɪliti/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.04 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
6
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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?"
Etymology
From Middle French impossibilité, from Latin impossibilitās. By surface analysis, im- + possibility and impossible + -ity.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: impossibilité, impossibilitās
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪmˌpɑsɪˈbɪliti/
- British English: /ɪmˌpɒsɪˈbɪliti/