unpunishableadj.

1530 St. German's Secunde Dyaloge Doctour & Student i. f. v He is vnpunysshable of waste by the lawe.

1584 R. Scot Discouerie Witchcraft iii. viii. 52 An impossible purpose is vnpunishable.

1648 T. Fairfax Remonstrance 49 While your own proceedings admit themselves unpunishable.

1682 in W. Evats tr. H. Grotius Rights War & Peace (title page) In the Third [Book] is declared, What in War is Lawful, that is Unpunishable.

a1700 J. Dryden tr. Ovid Art of Love (1709) i. 4 Th' unpunishable Pleasures of the Kind.

a1797 H. Walpole Mem. George II (1847) I. ii. 334 It is the cause of sovereigns that their crimes should be unpunishable.

1827 J. Bentham Rationale Judicial Evid. I. ii. v. 354 Mendacity..remains altogether unpunishable.

1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. I. v. i. 215 Inertia alone is at once unpunishable and unconquerable.

1909 L. Bell Concentrations of Bee x. 158 ‘How about a woman who marries a man for his money without loving him?’ I said. ‘There's an unpunishable crime for you.’

1944 W. S. Graham Seven Journeys (unpaginated text) I write my breath On bright unpunishable minds where pentacles Singe the winged flamen's pelt.

2013 Independent (Nexis) 16 Apr. 36 Jayde was unpunishable not because she didn't care..but because the Holloway staff had to spend most of their time preventing her from punishing herself too harshly.

1644 J. Doughty Kings Cavse 42 More outrages, I dare say, more heynous and crying sinnes in all kinds unpunishably committed under this pretext chiefly these last two yeares.

1791 C. R. Bunce tr. Charter James I 1609 in Transl. Several Charters granted to Citizens of Canterbury 185 They..shall and may be able, lawfully and unpunishably, to give, grant, will, or alien, manors, messuages, lands, tenements, or other hereditaments.

1829 J. Bentham Justice & Codification Petitions iii. 27 The now written, and above described unpunishably mendacious, pleadings.

1908 Square Deal July 70 They are all efforts to secure special privileges within the law, that they may irresponsibly and unpunishably attack the rights of all laboring men.

2005 H. E. Francis tr. N. L. Romero Last Night of Carnival 85 He remains standing like a statue unpunishably exhibiting his form until he comes toward me, his bare feet making the floorboards creak.