unreformableadj.

1549 W. Thomas Hist. Italie f. 78^v This foresaied great counsaile maie be lykened to our parliament: For vnto it manie mattiers of importaunce are appealed, and that that it dooeth, is vnreformable.

1624 W. Bedell Copies Certaine Lett. i. 43 You had that same one onely immoueable and vnreformable rule of faith..recited in your hearing.

1649 A. Ascham Bounds Publique Obed. 47 Unalterable and unreformable as a divine text.

1794 D. Stuart Peace & Reform against War & Corruption 19 Every man is called upon..to declare our Constitution glorious and unreformable.

1837 J. H. Newman Lect. Prophetical Office Church 267 This rule..is sole, unalterable, unreformable.

1917 C. H. Ward Sentence & Theme 129 No proposal has been made to change the vowels of separate, and it is that first a—that unreformable first a—that causes a mountain of errors.

1956 R. S. Bourne Hist. Literary Radical 14 He wrote that there is a gulf fixed between the young intellectual and the unreformable ‘system’.

2012 R. Ericson in R. E. Parker & R. Whaples Routledge Handbk. Major Events Econ. Hist. xxviii. 345 They attempted a truly radical reform of an inherently unreformable system.

1556 J. Ponet Shorte Treat. Politike Power sig. Giiij An euil prelate and unreformable semeth not to be ordayned by the will of God.

1583 A. Golding tr. J. Calvin Serm. on Deuteronomie cxvi. 711 They continued stubborne and vnreformable still.

1624 Bp. J. Hall True Peace-maker 36 The vnreformable drunkard.

1649 J. Owen Serm. preached to House of Commons 14 To swim against the streame of an unreformable multitude.

1733 L. Theobald Wks. Shakespeare I. Pref. p. xxii Our Poet has so well, and artfully, guarded his Character from the Suspicions of habitual and unreformable Profligateness.

1791 W. Cowper Let. 16 Nov. (1982) III. 587 Endeavouring to reform the unreformable Great.

1848 R. Phillimore Introd. Stud. Rom. Law 319 If I may coin a word to express an evil it is so hard to describe, the unreformable Court of Chancery.

1874 Macmillan's Mag. May 15/2 On the gallows he fulfils the proper ends of his being, which was corrupt and unreformable.

1938 L. V. Harrison & P. M. Grant Youth in Toils i. 5 Too many offenders are sent to prison to be reformed and too many of the unreformable are being let out for no better reason than the expiration of their sentences.

1957 B. De Zoete Dance & Magic Drama in Ceylon iv. 82 It is no doubt more convenient to regard these people as unreformable.

1981 R. A. Billington Land Savagery i. 8 These hate-ridden dispatches made clear that the red men were unreformable savages, forever committed to barbarism and the Devil's work.

2011 M. Berg Pop. Justice iii. 56 The ‘Sydney Ducks’ as the ex-convicts from the British penal colonies in Australia were called, had a reputation as hardened, unreformable criminals and could expect no clemency.