IM'POTENCY, n. [L. 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 resistor overcome habits and natural propensities. 3. Inability to beget.4. Ungovernable passion; a Latin signification. [Little used.]
|