Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use impotence in a sentence

13 example sentences · noun

Impotence means powerlessness; incapacity. Example: “Ideas that are not thus rooted in social needs are condemned to impotence, and this applies to all utopias and dreams of a perfect society.”

Examples of impotence by meaning

nounPowerlessness; incapacity.

  • Ideas that are not thus rooted in social needs are condemned to impotence, and this applies to all utopias and dreams of a perfect society.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume II: The Golden Age, Oxford: Clarendon...

More sentences with impotence

  • Behn had always associated the bourgeois with age, impotence, miserliness and dreary unflamboyance.2001, Derek Hughes, “Dearth and Famine”, in The Theatre of Aphra Behn, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 160. From the entry unflamboyance
  • But soon H., in his turn, came for help with complete impotence.1967, Henry V. Dicks, Marital Tensions: Clinical Studies towards a Psychological Theory of Interaction, New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, Inc.…. From the entry snake-phobia
  • Shall we follow Frederic Harrison, making an inadequate divinity out of our impotence?1917, Upton Sinclair, “The Knowable”, in The Profits of Religion […] , book 7. From the entry positivist
  • But these designations appear to run afoul of our earlier concerns about the individuative impotence of dummy sortals.2008 January 8, John E. Sarnecki, “Sortals for Dummies”, in Erkenntnis, volume 69, number 2, →DOI. From the entry individuative
  • In Bhopal, for example, impotence and loss of libido were reported among a large proportion of exposed males.1988, Tara Jones, “Against Toxic Capital”, in Corporate Killing: Bhopals Will Happen, London: Free Association Books, →ISBN, part 2 (More…. From the entry transgender
  • We are certainly not “eisegetically” importing anything into such passages if we find total spiritual impotence expressed in them.1945, The Abiding Word: Essays for the year 1946, page 312. From the entry eisegetically
  • It's a feeling of impotence: of cutting no ice.1920, Virginia Woolf, edited by Anne Olivier Bell, The Diary of Virginia Woolf, published 1984, page 72. From the entry cut ice
  • Sick at heart and oppressed with his feeling of loneliness and impotence, he could only look at her in speechless misery.1919, Ralph Connor, chapter 19, in The Major. From the entry sick at heart
  • In what follows, I want to examine a few examples of and to suggest reasons for this potional impotence in these works.1991, Maureen Fries, “The Impotent Potion: On the Minimization of the Love Theme in the Tristan en prose and Malory’s Morte D’Arthur”, in…. From the entry potional
  • Marcus Empiricus, a Roma physician, prescribed three scruples of cress, three of red onion, three of pine seed, three of Indian nard, for impotence.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 70. From the entry cress
  • It was only when the increasing impotence of the Han monarchs made it difficult to maintain order even at home that these were withdrawn.1934, Kenneth Scott Latourette, Chinese: Their History and Culture, volume 1, New York: The Macmillan Company, page 128. From the entry Tunhuang
  • I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of our impotence before each other's trials.1911, Joseph Conrad, chapter 1, in Under Western Eyes. From the entry commonplace

Meaning of impotence

  1. noun Powerlessness; incapacity.
  2. noun Inability to copulate or beget children; sterility, erectile dysfunction, etc.

Full definition of impotence

Questions about impotence in a sentence

How do you use impotence in a sentence?
Impotence is used as a noun. For example: “Ideas that are not thus rooted in social needs are condemned to impotence, and this applies to all utopias and dreams of a perfect society.”
What is a short sentence with impotence?
“It's a feeling of impotence: of cutting no ice.”
What does impotence mean?
Impotence means powerlessness; incapacity.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: impotence (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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