Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- the condition or quality of being impotent; weakness.
- chronic inability to attain or sustain an erection for the performance of a sexual act.
- sterility, especially in the male.
- Obsolete. lack of self-restraint.
early 15c., “physical weakness,” also “poverty,” from Middle French impotence “weakness,” from Latin impotentia “lack of control or power,” from impotentem (nominative impotens); see impotent. In reference to a want of (male) sexual potency, from c.1500. The figurative senses of the word in Latin were “violence, fury, unbridled passion.” Related: Impotency.
n.
- The quality or condition of being impotent.
- erectile dysfunction