or APORIME, a problem difficult to resolve, and which has never been resolved, though it be not, in itself, impossible.

The word is derived from ἀπόρησις, which signifies something very difficult, and impracticable; being formed from the privative α, and πορέω, passage. Such we conceive the quadrature of the circle; the duplicature of the cube; the trisection of an angle, &c. When a question was proposed to any of the Greek philosophers, especially of the sect of Academists; if he could not give a solution, his answer was ἀπόρησις, I cannot see through it.—This word is also used by some law writers for an inexplicable speech or discourse.