possibility
Pluralpossibilities
- 1Something that may take place or come into being; a thing that is possible.
Failure is always a possibility when you attempt something untried.
Doctors warned that a second surgery was a possibility if the bone did not heal.
UsageOften after is: a real, strong or distinct possibility.
Similarcontingency
- 2An option or choice, especially one considered when planning future events.
The committee weighed several possibilities for next year's budget.
Staying in her current job remained a possibility she had not fully ruled out.
Similaroption, choice, alternative
- 3The fact or state of being possible: the chance that an event could happen or that something could be true, as in the possibility of rain.
The possibility of rain forced them to move the wedding indoors.
Engineers studied the possibility of the dam failing under heavy flooding.
UsageUse the possibility of + -ing (of it raining) or the possibility that + clause; little or strong says how likely.
Similarchance, likelihood, prospect, risk, probability
Oppositeimpossibility, certainty
- 4The promise something shows: qualities that, if developed, could make it better, more useful, or more successful.
The abandoned warehouse has enormous possibilities as an artists' studio.
Investors were quick to see the commercial possibilities in the new battery design.
UsageA place or idea has possibilities; people see possibilities in it, often commercial or endless possibilities.
Similarpotential, promise, prospects
Note
In this sense the word is nearly always plural, and it is about promise rather than chance. Where the "something that might happen" meaning weighs whether an event will occur, this one looks at what a place, an idea or a design could become.
Less common meaning
- 5One's ability, strength, or capacity to act or accomplish something.
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.
1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke StrawNote
Here the word means what a person can do, not what might happen, a sense now obsolete. The Life and Death of Iacke Straw (1593) has a speaker wishing himself "in as good possibility as ever I was," meaning as able and as well placed as before. Modern readers easily take such lines as the quality of being possible. Read them as capacity instead, and leave this sense out of current writing.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Possibility had an obsolete sense meaning a person's capacity to act. en.wiktionary.org
- The Life and Death of Iacke Straw was first printed in 1593. en.wikipedia.org
- A speaker wishes himself back in his former capacity or position, using the quoted wording; the speaker is Wat Tyler. gutenberg.org
Practice
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Origin
This word came through Middle English possibilite and Middle French possibilité (from Old French possibilite), as well as directly from Late Latin possibilitās, which came from Latin possibilis meaning "possible." It can be seen as possible plus the ending -ity.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- The word came through Middle English possibilite and Middle French possibilité, from Old French possibilite. en.wiktionary.org
- The word also came directly from Late Latin possibilitās. en.wiktionary.org
- Late Latin possibilitās derives from Latin possibilis, meaning possible. en.wiktionary.org
- The word can be analysed as possible plus -ity. en.wiktionary.org