impossibility
pronunciation
How to pronounce impossibility in British English:
UK [ɪmˌpɒsə'bɪlətɪ]
How to pronounce impossibility in American English:
US [ɪmˌpɑsəˈbɪlɪti]
-
- Noun:
- incapability of existing or occurring
- an alternative that is not available
Word Origin
- impossibility (n.)
- late 14c., "quality of being impossible," from impossible + -ity; perhaps from or modeled on French impossibilité. Meaning "an impossible thing or occurrence" is from c. 1500.
Example
- 1. Not just the medical impossibility that I had been conscious during my coma , but-more importantly-the things that happened during that time .
- 2. And that 's a pretty safe assumption , giventhe logical impossibility of willing a violation of your will .
- 3. Arrow 's " impossibility theorem " demonstrates that no system of voting always gives the " right " result .
- 4. Much of this is caused by the changes in spelling convention , in addition to the fact that modern english is not spelt phonetically ( with the many different versions of english in use today an impossibility ) .
- 5. Consider niger , where france is not content to simply extract uranium from the country while paying third world prices ; it does so under such exploitative conditions -- sucking the groundwater dry -- that agriculture has become an impossibility in this agricultural nation .