infallibility
(ɪnfælɪˈbɪlɪtɪ)
[f. as infallible + -ity; repr. med.L. infallibilitās, obs. F. infallibilité (Fran{cced}. de Sales c 1600, in Godef. Compl.).]
1. The quality or fact of being infallible or exempt from liability to err.
| 1611 Cotgr., Infallibilité, infallibilitie, or infalliblenesse; certainetie, assurance. 1611 Bible Transl. Pref. 8 Men..priuiledged with the priuiledge of infallibilitie. 1624 Gataker Transubst. 110 The Pope sitting in his Chaire,..may yet erre for all his infallibility so much and so oft bragged of. 1662 Stillingfl. Orig. Sacr. ii. i. §2 [The evidences] will likewise prove the undoubted certainty and infallibility of those writings. 1791 Mrs. Radcliffe Rom. Forest xii, A striking instance of the infallibility of my judgment. 1870 Sat. Rev. 2 Apr. 443 Roman Catholics in this country acquired all their civil rights on the strength of their reiterated declarations that Papal infallibility was no doctrine of their church. 1875 Manning Mission H. Ghost xi. 301 That which we call infallibility is nothing but this: the Church cannot err from the path of revealed truth. |
b. His Infallibility, a title given to the Pope; also, a mock title.
| 1834 Oxf. Univ. Mag. I. 121 The day before the Pope expired, the startling announcement came forth ‘His Infallibility is delirious’. 1886 Pall Mall G. 19 June 1/1 An ex cathedrâ utterance from his Infallibility of Midlothian. |
c. An infallible person. rare.
| 1886 Sir F. Doyle Remin. 49 Youthful infallibilities of the normal Arnoldian type. |
2. The quality of being unfailing or not liable to fail; unfailing certainty.
| a 1631 Donne in Select. (1840) 188 Thy light shall grow up, from a fair hope, to a modest assurance and infallibility, that that light shall never go out. 1640 Howell Dodona's Gr. 67 Puffd up with such a certitude and infallibilitie of hopes and presumptions, that..there were Bonefires alreadie made. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xviii. 216 The prestige of a gun with a savage is in his notion of its infallibility. |