unmalleableadj.

1606 W. Smith Black-smith 30 The hard heart of man, which in this yron age wherein we liue, is become as vntractable, and vnmalleable as the stones of the earth.

1665 J. Spencer Disc. Prodigies (ed. 2) 341 To grow (like Iron often heated and quench'd) churlish and unmalleable by the hammer of the Divine threatnings.

1779 S. Johnson Dryden in Pref. Wks. Eng. Poets III. 215 After this he did not often bring upon his anvil such stubborn and unmalleable thoughts.

1795 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 85 341 Hard unmalleable iron.

1838 N. Hawthorne Jrnl. 15 Aug. in Amer. Notebks. (1972) ii. 117 A man of unmalleable habits.

1890 Spectator 19 July 79/2 The large masses of rather unmalleable human material which he contrives to collect together.

1932 Eng. Jrnl. 21 179 Beware of wishing away that sometimes uncomfortable, always unmalleable quality. It is the backbone of prose literature.

1959 J. C. Palmes tr. J. Joedicke Hist. Mod. Archit. 14 The coke-processed pig-iron..was inordinately brittle, unmalleable and of little practical use.

2010 E. F. Keller Mirage of Space between Nature & Nurture iv. 75 Some traits are relatively difficult to change after birth; other traits become relatively unmalleable only after the first six months of gestation.

1644 R. Chalfont Serm. 10 May 8 The hardnesse and unmalleablenesse of heart.

1832 Edinb. Rev. July 383 The restoration of such a Tibet Lama in the nineteenth century,..with a perfect knowledge of the incurable unmalleableness of its elements, was one of the unpardonable extravagances..which succeeded the fall of Bonaparte.

1957 Amer. Scientist 45 468 Frustrated enough by the unmalleableness of the external human world.., the individual may be impelled toward occupation with a system of ideas.