Imperviousness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being immune to external effects or damage, characterized by an inability to be influenced by outside factors or harmed by intrusions, shows a strong resistance against outside elements
2. Characterized by an inability to be affected or penetrated by external forces or substances, protecting the interior from outside impact
3. Describes the quality of refusing or blocking entrance to liquids or external influences, rendering an object or condition unaffected by outside interference

Etymology: "Imperviousness" is simply "impervious" with the suffix "-ness" added. "Impervious" comes from Latin "impervius", built from the prefix "in-" meaning "not" and "pervius", "passable" or "letting through", which itself comes from "per" ("through") and "via" ("way"). So the core idea is a path that cannot be passed through. The suffix "-ness" is one of English's oldest and most productive endings. It descends from Old English "-nes", which turned adjectives into nouns naming a quality or state, as in "good" becoming "goodness". Its distant ancestry runs back to Proto-Germanic forms that were attached to nouns and adjectives in the same way. Adding "-ness" to "impervious" produced a noun for the quality of being impenetrable, and the result is a word that simply describes that condition rather than any particular object.

Synonyms: impenetrability, invulnerability, resilience, insensitivity

Antonyms: vulnerability, susceptibility, permeability