irreversibleadj.

1629 W. Prynne Church of Englands Old Antithesis 78 The euerlasting and irreuersible Decrees of Election.

1649 Bp. J. Hall Resol. & Decisions iv. vi. 457 That since marriage once passed, is irreversible, we may have some breathing-time betwixt our promise and accomplishment.

1677 W. Sherlock Answer Scandalous Pamphlet 23 He is under an irreversible Decree.

1728 R. Morris Ess. Anc. Archit. 7 The irreversable Decree of Fate.

1868 J. Bright Speeches Public Policy I. 285 A triumph which has pronounced the irreversible doom of slavery.

1885 Law Times 78 183/2 It was so taken [to the House of Lords] and the previously irreversible decisions of the Queen's Bench were reversed.

1819 C. Lamb in Examiner 14 Feb. 109/1 Delightful eternal common-places..having your irreversible throne in the fancy and affections.

1864 F. C. Bowen Treat. Logic xii. 398 It is Causal relation, and, as such, is absolute and unchangeable, for it is irreversible even in thought.

1870 J. Yeats Nat. Hist. Commerce 28 The irreversible order of deposits.

1899 Jrnl. Physiol. 24 180 (heading) Colloidal mixtures which form irreversible molecular aggregates when they pass into the gel state.]

1900 Proc. Royal Soc. 1899–1900 66 110 A large number of colloidal solutions..belong to the class of irreversible colloidal mixtures.

1915 M. H. Fischer tr. W. Ostwald Handbk. Colloid-chem. 40 When a change in the state of a colloid may be reversed by reversing the conditions which brought that change about, it is said to be ‘reversible’. Thus when a colloid which has been precipitated by a salt goes back into solution on removal of the salt, the colloid change is said to be ‘reversible’. On the other hand, if this does not occur it is ‘irreversible’.

1930 J. C. Ware Chem. Colloidal State ix. 204 When a reversible colloid is evaporated to dryness and later stirred into the fluid which constituted the external phase, a very complete dispersion will again result. With an irreversible colloid, a suspension will not result by mixing with the solvent but one of the regular methods for the preparation of the colloidal state must be applied.

1930 Engineering 18 July 61/1 Gels which cannot be converted into sols are ‘irreversible’.

1959 K. J. Mysels Introd. Colloid Chem. iv. 82 These different behaviors are quite generally called reversible and irreversible flocculations.

1824 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 15 520 The irreversibility of the judgments.

1873 B. Stewart Conservation of Energy v. 142 The irreversibility of the process puts a stop to all this.

a1631 J. Donne Serm. (1954) VII. 71 In the anguish of that dissolution, in the sorrowes of that valediction, in the irreversiblenesse of that transmigration.

1678 T. Jones Of Heart & Soveraign 441 The perpetuity and irreversibleness of this decree.

1732 T. Stackhouse New Hist. Bible v. ii. (T. Suppl.) A precedent of the irreversibleness of oaths.