unpardonable
adjEtymology From un- + pardonable.
1
impossible to pardon; impossible to excuse or justify
- And you will ſee it really may happen in this very happy land, that men who are rich may commit, with impunity, crimes infinitely more unpardonable, becauſe they are committed with leſs temptation, than thoſe for which “little villains” ſuffer every day—crimes which involve in their conſequences the moſt fatal events.1794, Charlotte Smith, chapter XI, in The Banished Man. […], volume II, London: […] T[homas] Cadell, Jun. and W[illiam] Davies, (successors to Mr. [Thomas] Cadell) […], →OCLC, page 236:
- "I can understand your being wicked," she said keenly, "but not your being cowardly. That is and was unpardonable."1900, Gilbert Parker, An Unpardonable Liar:
3 more examples
- To lose a game was bad enough, but to round on a comrade was unpardonable; while to lose from the game a half-back of Cameron's calibre was unthinkable.1912, Ralph Connor, Corporal Cameron of the Northwest Mounted Police:
- It would be unpardonable to ignore the repeated lessons of history.1949, The Department of State Bulletin, volume 20, page 472:
- Furthermore, what would otherwise be good points about the sort of selective literalism that renders homosexuality an unpardonable sin but shrugs off Sarah Palin’s biblically forbidden pearl earrings are lost in Eichenwald’s assumption that evangelicals make these decisions “with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch.”2015 January 6, Rachel Held Evans, “What Newsweek gets wrong about evangelicals”, in CNN:
- Synonyms
- inexcusable, unforgivable, unremittable, unjustifiable, indefensible
- Antonyms
- pardonable
- Derived terms
- unpardonableness, unpardonable sin, unpardonably
- Related terms
- pardonable