impossibility

plural impossibilities

1. countableuncountableSomething that is impossible.

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

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   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.

   1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), John Milton, Tetrachordon: Expositions upon the Foure Chief Places in Scripture, which Treat of Mariage, or Nullities in Mariage. […], London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 17

   My dear Tom, you are going to undertake an Impossibility. If you knew my Father, you would never think of obtaining his Consent.

   1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book XIV, page 104

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

   1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter II, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume I, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 73

   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.

   1962, Aldous Huxley, chapter 8, in Island, New York: Bantam, published 1963, page 123

   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?

   2019 December 9, qntm, “Wild Light”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, pages 191–192

2. uncountableThe quality of being impossible.

   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,

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

   c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]

   [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 […]

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC

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

   1838, [Edgar Allan Poe], chapter XXII, in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 173

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

   1937, George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, New York: Harcourt, Brace, published 1958, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 61

3. countableobsoleteuncountableThe state of being unable to do something.

   […] out of their own torment, they [the damned] see the felicitie of the saints; togither with their impossibility of attayning it.

   1607, Joseph Hall, Holy Observations, Lib. 1, London: Samuel Macham, 59, p. 85

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   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.

   1562, Hugh Latimer, 27 Sermons Preached by […] Hugh Latimer, London: John Day, Sermon 7 p. 45

   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.

   1652, Thomas Fuller, A Comment on the Eleven First Verses of the Fourth Chapter of S. Matthew’s Gospel, London: George Eversden, Sermon 7, p. 105

   Synonyms: inability, incapability, helplessness