Impossibilities.

Latin phrases:

Æthiõpem de-albāre.

Arēnas arāre.

Latĕrem lavāre.

Pumĭce aridius.

In asino lanam.

English phrases:

Gathering grapes from thistles.

Fetching water in a sieve.

Washing a blackamoor white.

Catching wind in cabbage nets.

Flaying eels by the tail.

Making cheese of chalk.

Squaring the circle.

Turning base metal into gold.

The elixir of life.

Making a silk purse of a sow’s ear.

(And hundreds more.)

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.