Dictionary

unpardonable en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Germanic *un- Proto-West Germanic *un- Old English un- Middle English un- English un- English pardonable English unpardonable From un- + pardonable.

Meanings

1. impossible to pardon; impossible to excuse or justify
   • "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:
   • It would be unpardonable to ignore the repeated lessons of history. 1949, The Department of State Bulletin, volume 20, page 472:
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • 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:

Forms

Antonyms

pardonable

Deriveds

unpardonable sin · unpardonably · unpardonableness

Relateds

pardonable

Synonyms

indefensible · unjustifiable · unremittable · inexcusable · unforgivable

Translations (11)

is ófyrirgefanlegur (impossible to pardon or forgive) · bg непростим (impossible to pardon or forgive) · eo nepardonebla (impossible to pardon or forgive) · hu megbocsáthatatlan (impossible to pardon or forgive) · ru непростительный (impossible to pardon or forgive) · de unverzeihlich (impossible to pardon or forgive) · mk неопростлив (impossible to pardon or forgive) · fa نابخشودنی (impossible to pardon or forgive) · fr impardonnable (impossible to pardon or forgive) · grc ἀναπολόγητος (impossible to pardon or forgive) · da utilgivelig (impossible to pardon or forgive)