IMPOTENT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Impotent

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/ˈɪmpətənt/ Listen

adjective

Impotent adj.

Not potent; wanting power, strength. or vigor. whether physical, intellectual, or moral; deficient in capacity; destitute of force; weak; feeble; infirm. "There sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent inhis feet." "O most lame and impotent conclusion!" "Not slow to hear, Nor impotent to save."

Wanting the power of self-restraint; incontrolled; ungovernable; violent. "Impotent of tongue, her silence broke."

(Med.) Wanting the power of procreation; unable to copulate; also, sometimes, sterile; barren; specifically, in males: Unable to achieve or sustain a penile erection.

noun

Impotent n. One who is impotent. (R.)

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Etymology of 'Impotent'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Impotent" Quotes from Famous Books

... local distress, and that of a distinction between the pauper and the vagabond, were more clearly defined in a statute of 1572. By this Act the justices in the country districts, and mayors and other officers in towns, were directed to register the impotent poor, to settle them in fitting habitations and to assess all inhabitants for their support. Overseers were appointed to enforce and superintend their labour, for which wool, hemp, flax, or other stuff was to be provided at the expense of the inhabitants; ...

— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... gigantic size cowered in the dark green; the erythrina stood quietly there upright like a mountain of fire; everything rested voluptuously, or overwhelmed, in the glow of the higher-mounting sun—only the snowy importunity of the fountain wore itself out in impotent resistance to his sway. I too stood motionless in an unshaded opening; I no longer felt the glow as a burden; with rapture, with awe, with rapture I felt its untamable creative energy—just as years before, one cold winter night, I had felt its lust of destruction at a conflagration ...

— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... of members or by the exclusion from representation of a requisite number of States, reduce the minority to less than one-third. Congress by these means might be enabled to pass a law, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding, which would render impotent the other two departments of the Government and make inoperative the wholesome and restraining power which it was intended by the framers of the Constitution should be exerted by them. This would be a practical concentration of all power in the Congress of the United States; this, in the language ...

— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... of Byron ranks with the meanest and most impotent actions of the militant oligarchists because of his shocking (?) sympathy with England's enemy. The fierce though exquisite weaver of rhymes, who had been the idol of the nation and the drawing-room, was sought after by the highest and most cultured in the ...

— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... fallen back upon his pillow of folded flag, and the Red Ensign over him bubbled and heaved with his impotent paroxysms. ...

— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

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