Word of the Week #5

impassible \im-PASS-uh-buhl\, adjective:
1. Incapable of suffering; not subject to harm or pain.

2. Unfeeling or not showing feeling.

"Body is flux and frustration, a locus of pain and process. If it becomes impassible and incorruptible, how is it still body?"
--Jeffrey Burton Russell, A History of Heaven

"As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassible face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it"
--Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs

Impassible is from Late Latin impassibilis, from Latin in-, "not" + Late Latin passibilis, "passible; capable of feeling or suffering" from Latin passus, past participle of pati, "to suffer." It is related to passion, which originally meant "suffering" but came to apply to any strong feeling or emotion.