Last Five Words

impregnable  

(adjective) [im-PREG-nah-bahl]

1. impossible to take by force; 'an impregnable fortress': "This impregnable canister will keep your food safe from bears and discourage them from entering the campsites."

2. able to withstand challenge and attack; 'an impregnable argument'; 'impregnable faith'

adverb form: impregnably

Origin:
Approximately 1430; from Old French, 'in-': not + 'prenable': vulnerable, assailable, from stem of 'prendre': to take, to grasp.

In action:
"I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it."

Anna Julia Cooper (1859-1964). African American educator and feminist. A Voice from the South (1892).

"Ever since Mexico began playing internationally almost 75 years ago, they have dominated North American competition, but have fallen short against teams from outside the continent, especially when they leave their impregnable fortress of Estadio Azteca in Mexico City." "Mexican national team," Ussoccerplayers.com (2005).

"'Anything he claims to have invented, he didn't. He's a science fiction writer,' said Robert Shillman, founder, chairman and chief executive at Cognex Corp., the world's largest maker of machine vision products and one of Lemelson's most truculent opponents.

On his deathbed, Lemelson knew he had enemies. But he believed he had defeated them, that he had built an impregnable machine to protect his inventions after his death, a for-profit foundation that would enforce his patents and collect millions in royalties. Lemelson was dying, but his legacy was immortal. Or at least that's the way it seemed."

Adam Goldman. "Patent king used court to amass a fortune," The Associated Press (August 27, 2005).

"This is no war for domination or imperial aggrandisement or material gain.... It is a war ... to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man." Winston Churchill (1874-1965). British statesman, writer. Speech to the House of Commons [On that day's declaration of war against Germany by Britain and France.] (September 3, 1939).

"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings!
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed--
All murdered; for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell, king!"

William Shakespeare (1564-1616). British poet. [Yielding to despair, and foreshadowing his own death.] King Richard II.