compossible

[prettygoodword]

compossible - adj., able to exist with another thing, compatible, consistent.


I keep wanting to make that X and Y are compossible, but the use seems to really be that X is compossible with Y. From medieval Latin, used since the 1630s.

---L.

Comments

[packbat.livejournal.com]

This strikes me as a really useful term. For example, the logical problem of evil becomes, "Is an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God compossible with the existence of evil?"

(Is there a standard antonym, by the way?)

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Aside from "impossible," which doesn't directly correlate syntactically, I can't think of anything better than "incompatable."

---L.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

I'll probably use "incompossible", then. I expect to be defining it if I use it, anyway.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Cool word. I like this one. :)