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impuissant: msg#00018

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: impuissant

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The Word of the Day for April 19 is:

impuissant /im-PWIH-sunt/ adjective
: weak, powerless

Example sentence:
Jonah was a relentless bully who sought to intimidate any
impuissant student that he could find in the schoolyard.

Did you know?
Both the adjective "impuissant" and the noun "impuissance"
came to English from Anglo-French. They are derived from the
prefix "in-" (meaning "not") and the noun "puissance," which
means "power" and is a word in English in its own
right. "Puissance" derives from the verb "poer," meaning "to be
able" or "to be powerful," and is ultimately related to the same
Latin roots that gave us words such as "power" and "potent."
While both "puissant" and "impuissance" first appeared in
English during the 15th century, "impuissant" did not make its
first appearance in our language until 1629.





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