non possumus
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of non possumus
From Latin: literally, “we cannot”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The Prague Government made representations to Budapest, but the Royal Hungarian Government assumed a non possumus attitude.
From Time Magazine Archive
But he wished to protect the weak against the strong, and what he hated beyond everything was the non possumus of any constituted authority.
From Character and Opinion in the United States by George Santayana
The Board of Admiralty, invulnerable in their environment of red tape, refused the request, repeating the non possumus when on two subsequent occasions the request was preferred.
From Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 by Various
He has no hatred of religion, as the atheistic radical bourgeois had, but with a good-natured "non possumus" says by his actions what Engels says by his philosophy.
From Landmarks of Scientific Socialism "Anti-Duehring" by Friedrich Engels
A man had been brought to the chair of St. Peter who felt his own human power too strongly to consent to the impotence of the traditional non possumus.
From Margaret Fuller (Marchesa Ossoli) by Julia Ward Howe
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
