insurmountability
English
editEtymology
editFrom in- + surmount + -ability.
Noun
editinsurmountability (uncountable)
- The state or quality of being insurmountable.
- 1877, John Joseph Henry, Account of Arnold's Campaign Against Quebec[1], J. Munsell, page 171:
- But when we reflect that across the road at the centre of the arc of each curve there was a barricade, and cannon placed to rake the' intervals between the different barricades, the difficulties of the ascent, which is very steep, would be increased even to insurmountability.
- 1885, George Washington Cable, Richard Hooker WIlmer, Dr. Sevier[2], J. R. Osgood and Company, page 195:
- He dried his eyes. His aunt saw the insurmountability of the difficulty, and they drowned feeling in an affectionate glass of green-orangeade.
- 1910, Emma Goldman, Mother Earth (1906-1917)[3], page 305:
- The tragedy of a genius towering above its contemporaries does not end with death. The latter merely helps to accentuate more forcibly the insurmountability of inherent contrasts.
References
edit- “insurmountability”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.