impossibility
37
5.3
- noun
- /ɪmˌpɑːsəˈbɪləti/
:
imposibilidad
- The history of the United States, however, shows the impossibility of complete separation of church and state.
- possibility and impossibility
- virtual impossibility
- necessity and impossibility
Modal logic deals with necessity, possibility, impossibility, these sorts of things.
- Modal logic deals with necessity, possibility, impossibility, these sorts of things.
- But it's a mathematical impossibility to meet global meet demand using this model.
- I mean Roe V Wade was overturned and people long thought that that was an impossibility.
- And I think if you don't have a God and you don't have a soul, that free will is a logical impossibility.
- Busby There was an impossibility in trying to change public opinion. There had been too much damage done
- So this impossibility to define one notion of now that we all agree on is called the relativity of simultaneity.
- In both cases the thing things seemed to be sheer impossibility.
- It's like the beer gesture proves it's impossibility.
- Yet when they have an important life event like a child, we create an impossibility for that.
- But what we do want to do, see part X is the avatar of impossibility.
- It seems to me there's an interesting impossibility there, right, That whatever you do, you're going to to blindness and insight, right?
- They were pulled from the impossibilities of understanding their context, giving the sense the enormity of what is out there.
Examples
-
First is the impossibility of predicting Qatar's high demand for foreign labor, even in the short run.
Academic text (2015) -
I started to feel hopeless and began to think of the impossibility of finding the right answer to my questions.
Fiction book (2001) -
Turning water into wine is a physical impossibility.
-
That is a scientific impossibility.
-
Reform from within to enforce accountability is a practical impossibility for constitutional reasons as well.
Academic text (1992) -
A pizza with that variety of cheese is a culinary impossibility!
-
His relatively high salary makes his tenure an impossibility during the austere period following a lost contract.
Fiction book (1992) -
Braybrooke focuses on the empirical impossibility of ever fulfilling the conditions of the contract.
Academic text (1990) -
Now I get this skepticism, I get this cynicism, I get this sense of impossibility, But I don't buy it.
-
Turning water into wine is a physical impossibility.
Synonyms
1
8.5
A situation where something cannot be done or is not practical
A state when something cannot happen or be done
The fact that something cannot be done
A situation that is impossible or too difficult to make work
The state of being impossible to reach or get
A state of not being able to reach or get something
A state in which something cannot be done in real life
Antonyms
Compounds
How Achievable
26
3.9
18
4.5
- US
∞
2.0
651
2.4
1
6.8
37
5.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
impossibility = impossible (transparent) = im + possible + ity
Standard noun formation from the adjective 'impossible' using the productive suffix '-ity', directly indicating the state or quality of being impossible.
Etymology
Impossibility is made of im- meaning 'not', possible meaning 'able to happen', and the ending -ity meaning 'a state'. Think of it as 'not able' — so an impossibility is something that 'cannot be done'.