possibility

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a possible alternative

   Declaring bankruptcy is always a possibility.

2. 2
   noun

   a future prospect or potential

   If I keep working with these chemicals, there's a possibility that my sense of smell will be impaired!

3. 3
   noun

   capability of existing or happening or being true

   There is a possibility that my sense of smell has been impaired due to the chemicals I must endure at my workplace.

4. 4
   noun

   The quality of being possible.

   'There is little possibility of that happening' 'I'd say there's rather a strongish possibility that it won't.

5. 5
   noun

   A thing possible; that which may take place or come into being.

   Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.

6. 6
   noun

   An option or choice, usually used in context with future events.

   Mycelial lives are so other, their possibilities so strange.

7. 7
   noun

   Capability, power or capacity to act.

   VVere Iacke Strawe a liue againe, And I in as good poſſibility as euer I was, I would lay a ſurer trumpe, Ere I would loſe ſo faire a tricke.

8. 8
   noun

   a tentative insight into the natural world

Etymology

From Middle English possibilite, from Middle French possibilité (from Old French possibilite) and directly from Late Latin possibilitās (“possibility”), from Latin possibilis (“possible”); see possible. By surface analysis, possible + -ity.