| 释义 |
unsurˈmountable, a.
[un-1 7 b and 5 b.]
1. Incapable of being surpassed or exceeded. rare.
1611Cotgr., Insurmontable, vnsurmountable, vnexceedable. 1745Young Nt. Th. viii. 328 That unsurmountable extreme of guilt!
2. Incapable of being surmounted or overcome; insurmountable:
a. Of difficulties, etc. (Common in 18th c.)
1701Lond. Gaz. No. 3713/1 We passed the Mountains..Which were thought unsurmountable. 1757Foote Author i. Wks. 1799 I. 141 The obscurity..of your birth, will prove an unsurmountable bar. 1788Trifler No. 11. 134 The Prolixity of six and thirty Stanzas in a Pastoral Tale, proves an unsurmountable Exception. 1911Riker Henry Fox II. 126 The obstacle was not unsurmountable.
b. Of feelings.
c1740Mrs. Delany Life & Corr. (1861) I. 29 The courtship..was awkward to Gromio (who saw too well my unsurmountable dislike). 1771Goldsm. Hist. Eng. II. 85 An unsurmountable aversion to the English government. 1791Burke Let. to Memb. Nat. Assemb. 50 If disgust, if unsurmountable nausea, drive them away from such spectacles,..I cannot blame them.
3. Inextinguishable, unquenchable.
1725Fam. Dict. s.v. Fever, It causes a violent Heat and unsurmountable Thirst.
Hence unsurˈmountableness.
1894Thinker VI. 76 Superstitious faith in nature's unsurmountableness. |