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Can I use the word "impotence" and not refer to erectile dysfunction

English Language & Usage Asked on April 24, 2021

I wonder whether I can use the word "impotence" to describe something as being weak or as it having fallen off.

I’m using this word in the "about me" page in stackoverflow.

Software, being soft, breaks our fated chains of martyrdom
and escorts us out from the cave; the cave of scarcity. We are to
progress into a new age, the cerebral age, if you will. The age where
self interest will be de-demonized, but also lost due to
its own impotence. We are freed from animal self-indulgence into a
world where man acts, just acts.

2 Answers

Even in serious writing, as this sample clearly is, aimed at a serious audience, there is absolutely no problem, this being so because as a well established usage exists and as readers have no reasons to look for meanings that make for nonsense when the obvious one is pointed by the context, the real business in reading you is to understand what you mean.

(SOED) 1 = IMPOTENCE 1.

(SOED) impotence 1 Lack of strength or power; helplessness; weakness; feebleness.

You shouldn't even be stopped by the real possibility that an educated reader, out of contempt for your way of thinking, simply because of being out of step with you for instance, could occasionally make a pun involving sex (not necessarily concerning you personally) in a derisive manner. Such eventualities do not usually condition the choice of words.

Correct answer by LPH on April 24, 2021

The meanings of impotence (aka impotency) given by Lexico are

1 Inability to take effective action; helplessness.

2 Inability in a man to achieve an erection or orgasm.

A man with erectile dysfunction is usually described as being impotent rather than 'having impotency', unlike 'having measles' or 'having the flu'.

Answered by Weather Vane on April 24, 2021

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