Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The property of being perfectible; the property of being susceptible of becoming or being made perfect; specifically, the capability of arriving at perfection in this life, whether a general perfection of the human faculties or Christian perfection.
- n. The doctrine that historical religion will gradually lose its tempoary and local character and be perfected according to the ideal formed by reason. This idea was suggested by Lessing.
Wiktionary
- n. The possibility of achieving perfection.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being perfectible.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the capability of becoming perfect
Examples
“Last week I reread Gulliver's Travels, it's for the chapter I'm writing for the book on breeding the chapter's about the idea of perfectibility, Swift to Godwin, with digressions on horse-breeding and cultural versus genetic perfectibility; Swift really is the most amazing writer, there's no one else like him.”
“Where then is the sense of calling the perfectibility of man as used by modern philosophers to be mere words without a meaning, that is mere nonsense.”
“Returning to that "perfectibility" argument I was making a couple of weeks ago, Luthor believes he's earned the right to occupy Superman's cultural role--his idea of perfection is defined in terms of power and prestige, and you don't get much more of that than being the U.S.”
“Hogg laughed at him for his belief in the 'perfectibility' of the race, but Hogg knew the belief was vital to the poet.”
“Malthus argues that 'perfectibility' gives an impossible end because equality would lead to vice and misery.”
“perfectibility," which rests on much less impressive evidence.”
“But the complexity of his own world view he opposed British involvement in the war but was himself a power-worshiper with a totalitarian itch who believed passionately in human perfectibility charges what might have been a standard-issue Shavian sermon with the multilayered ambiguity of high art.”
“Does his benevolent intention, his belief in "the perfectibility of mankind," mitigate his culpability in any way?”
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd: Questions
“Sociologists have been seduced by Marxist ideas about the perfectibility of mankind.”
“Maxims do not speak to the perfectibility of human beings; at least the best ones do not.”
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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