| 释义 |
incomprehensibility|ɪnkɒmprɪhɛnsɪˈbɪlɪtɪ|
[f. next: see -ity: cf. F. incompréhensibilité (Montaigne, 16th c.).]
The quality or state of being incomprehensible; an instance of this.
1. Incapability of being comprised or circumscribed within limits; boundlessness, infinitude.
1650Hobbes Treat. Hum. Nat. xi. Wks. 1840 IV. 60 This it is which all men conceive by the name of God, implying eternity, incomprehensibility, and omnipotency. 1701Norris Ideal World i. v. 302 The Divine nature, and..the same real infinity and incomprehensibility that essentially belongs to it. 1724Waterland Athan. Creed 139. 1866 Liddon Bampt. Lect. i. (1875) 29 When we confess the omnipresence and incomprehensibility of God.
†b. That which is incapable of limitation. Obs.
1610Healey St. Aug. Citie of God 459 His [i.e. God's] wisdome..can comprehend all incomprehensibility, by his incomprehensible comprehension.
2. Incapability of being grasped by the mind; inconceivableness, unintelligibility.
1598Florio, Incomprehensibilità, incomprehensibilitie. 1694South Twelve Serm. (1698) III. 267 [The] constant, universal sense of all Antiquity Unanimously confessing an Incomprehensibility in many of the Articles of the Christian Faith. 1734Berkeley Analyst §49 This obscurity and incomprehensibility of your metaphysics. 1836–7Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. xxvi. (1859) II. 136 The incomprehensibility of the fact of consciousness.
b. Something inconceivable or unintelligible.
1651tr. Life Father Sarpi (1676) 39 This ariseth..from some incomprehensibility that is met with. 1825Coleridge Aids Refl. (1848) I. 141 On the score of any incomprehensibilities and seeming contradictions that might be objected to it. 1850De Quincey in H. A. Page Life (1877) II. xvii. 69 Such a result..would have been an impossibility, and not only so but also an incomprehensibility. |