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American Dictionary of the English Language

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Impotence


IM'POTENCE,

IM'POTENCY, noun [Latin impotentia; in and potentia, from possum. See Power.]

1. Want of strength or power, animal or intellectual; weakness; feebleness; inability; imbecility; defect of power, natural or adventitious, to perform any thing.

Some were poor by the impotency of nature; as young fatherless children, old decrepit persons, idiots and cripples.

The impotence of exercising animal motion attends fevers.

2. Moral inability; the want of power or inclination to resist

or overcome habits and natural propensities.

3. Inability to beget.

4. Ungovernable passion; a Latin signification. [Little Used.]