INCONTINENCE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Incontinence

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/ɪnkˈɑntənəns/ Listen

noun

Incontinency, Incontinence n.

Incapacity to hold; hence, incapacity to hold back or restrain; the quality or state of being incontinent; lack of continence; failure to restrain the passions or appetites; indulgence of lust; lewdness. "That Satan tempt you not for your incontinency." "From the rash hand of bold incontinence."

(Med.) The inability of any of the animal organs to restrain the natural evacuations, especially urination, or defecation, so that the discharges are involuntary; as, incontinence of urine.

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Etymology of 'Incontinence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Incontinence" Quotes from Famous Books

... be stopped by means of the cautery. He divides rectal fistulae into penetrating and non-penetrating, and suggests salves for the non-penetrating and the actual cautery for those that penetrate. He warns against the possibility of producing incontinence by the incision of deep fistulae, for this would leave the patient in ...

— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... little free from excessive reproach from all clergymen, sentimentalists, and others, who do their worst to uphold the common and rather bestial opinion in favour of reckless propagation, and who, if they do not advocate the despatch of children to public institutions, still encourage a selfish incontinence which ultimately falls in burdens on others than the offenders, and which turns the family into a scene of squalor and brutishness, producing a kind of parental influence that is far more disastrous and demoralising than the absence of it in public institutions ...

— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... recalled Adam to the sense of his burden. He was to go into the study immediately. "I can't think what that strange person's come about," the butler added, from mere incontinence of remark, as he preceded Adam to the door, "he's gone i' the dining-room. And master looks unaccountable—as if he was frightened." Adam took no notice of the words: he could not care about other people's business. But when he entered the ...

— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... extremities are often icy cold; he calls for air, and to stop fanning all in one breath; he wishes the perspiration wiped off his brow, and nearly goes frantic while it is being done; there is agony depicted on his face; his eyes stare; his expirations are often groaning. Sometimes there is even incontinence of urine and feces, often hiccup or short coughs, perhaps vomiting, and possibly sharp pangs of pain in the cardiac region. A patient with these symptoms may die at any moment, and the wonder is that so many times ...

— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... her arms helplessly stretched out, her face unseen. Every now and then a thrill ran through her body: she was talking to herself all the time with incessant low incontinence of words. ...

— Sylvia's Lovers -- Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

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