Contents -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.

Class IV. Words Relating to the Intellectual Faculties
Division (I) Formation of Ideas
Section III. Materials for Reasoning

471. Impossibility.

   NOUN:IMPOSSIBILITY &c. adj.; what cannot be, what can never be; sour grapes; hopelessness [See Hopelessness]; infeasibility, infeasibleness, impracticality; discrepancy (disagreement) [See Amorphism].
  [COMPARISONS] Canute (commanding the tide), Mrs. Partington (and her mop).
   VERB:BE IMPOSSIBLE &c. adj.; have no chance whatever.
  ATTEMPT IMPOSSIBILITIES; square the circle, find the elixir of life, discover the philosopher’s stone, discover the grand panacea, find the fountain of youth, discover the secret of perpetual motion; wash a blackamoor white; skin a flint; make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, make bricks without straw; have nothing to go upon; weave a rope of sand, build castles in the air, prendre la lune avec les dents [F.], extract sunbeams from cucumbers, milk a he-goat into a sieve, catch a weasel asleep, rompre l’anguille au genou [F.], be in two places at once; gather grapes from thorns, fetch water in a sieve, catch wind in cabbage nets, fling eels by the tail, make cheese of chalk.
   ADJECTIVE:IMPOSSIBLE; not possible [See Possibility]; absurd, contrary to reason; at variance with the facts; unlikely; unreasonable [See Intuition. Sophistry]; incredible [See Unbelief. Doubt]; beyond the bounds of -reason, – possibility; from which reason recoils; visionary; inconceivable (improbable) [See Improbability]; prodigious &c. (wonderful) [See Wonder]; unimaginable, inimaginable [obs.], not to be thought of, unthinkable.
  IMPRACTICABLE, unachievable; unfeasible, infeasible; insuperable; insurmountable or unsurmountable, unattainable, unobtainable; out of reach, out of the question; not to be had; beyond control; desperate (hopeless) [See Hopelessness]; incompatible [See Disagreement]; inaccessible, uncomeatable [colloq.], impassable, impervious, innavigable, inextricable; self-contradictory.
  out of -, beyond- one’s -power, – depth, – reach, – grasp; too much for; ultra crepidam [L.].
   QUOTATIONS:

1. The grapes are sour.
2. Non possumus.
3. Non nostrum tantas componere lites.—Vergil
4. Chercher une aiguille dans une botte de foin.
5. Il a le mer à boire.
6. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.—Johnson
7. It is not a lucky word, this same impossible.—Carlyle