IMPOSSIBILITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does impossibility mean? 

• IMPOSSIBILITY (noun)
  The noun IMPOSSIBILITY has 2 senses:

1. incapability of existing or occurring

2. an alternative that is not available

  Familiarity information: IMPOSSIBILITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPOSSIBILITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Incapability of existing or occurring

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

impossibility; impossibleness

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)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An alternative that is not available

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

impossibility; impossible action

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)

 Context examples 

Further, and keenest of all, she read into the incident the impossibility of his living down his working-class origin.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr. Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any other change, he could not agree to.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But then the impossibility of the thing obtruded itself upon me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

She felt the unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted the impossibility of thinking well of a man so kindly disposed towards herself, and so full of civility to all her family.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The impossibility of not doing everything in the world to make Fanny Price happy, or of ceasing to love Fanny Price, was of course the groundwork of his eloquent answer.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

After tea we had the guitar; and Dora sang those same dear old French songs about the impossibility of ever on any account leaving off dancing, La ra la, La ra la, until I felt a much greater Monster than before.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The shutting of the gates regularly at ten o’clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that hour had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome to me.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)