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.]
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI