unpliableadj.

a1425 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Magdalene Coll. Cambr.) (1850) Heb. x. 23 Vnpliable [c1384 Douce 369(2) We..holde the confessioun of oure hope vnbowynge, or that may not be foldyn; L. indeclinabilem].

1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 687 Their stiffenesse and unpliable disposition, the roughnesse also of their skinne, argueth their dry nature.

1627 I. Bargrave Serm. 4 Wee are all as oxen unpliable to the yoake.

1652 T. Urquhart Εκσκυβαλαυρον 250 Such..sinners as should prove unpliable to the stamp of his wholesome admonitions.

1751 D. Hume Enq. Princ. Morals ix. ii. 190 All our Failures here proceed from bad Education, Want of Capacity, or a perverse and unpliable Disposition.

1774 T. Reid Aristotle's Logic iv. §3 It is somewhat unpliable to rules.

1885 S. Cox Expos. I. 101 He saw a new heaven and a new earth,..free from all that renders it hostile or unpliable to the spirit of man.

2014 Nation (Pakistan) (Nexis) 17 Feb. This creates divisions within the ranks of militants so that some are engaged while the most unpliable are destroyed piecemeal.

a1618 W. Raleigh Judicious Ess. & Observ. (1650) i. 9 They tooke the winds in Sailes of Leather, heavy and unplyable.

1622 F. Markham Five Decades Epist. of Warre i. x. 38 Buckram..is too stiffe and unplyable.

1753 J. Cooke in J. Hanway Hist. Acct. Brit. Trade Caspian Sea I. lvi. 376 The paper was very hard and unpliable.

1760 Philos. Trans. 1759 (Royal Soc.) 51 290 [Wires] so unpliable and brittle, as to be rendered quite useless.

1806 R. Forsyth Beauties Scotl. IV. 31 The spruce..has unpliable branches.

1825 W. Scott Betrothed iii, in Tales Crusaders I. 40 A broad countenance, with heavy and unpliable features.

1885 F. H. Bowman Struct. Wool Fibre Gloss. 354 Hask, dry and hard or unpliable.

1928 N. Shepherd Quarry Wood viii. 100 They were rough, clumsily cut, of thick unpliable leather.

1990 V. Wise & S. Hoffman Well-filled Tortilla Cookbk. 16/1 Freezing dries them [sc. corn tortillas] out and makes them unpliable.

2007 North Shore News (Brit. Columbia) (Nexis) 12 Oct. 56 As temperatures drop, rubber becomes hard and unpliable.

1769 W. Anderson Hist. France I. 67 The failure of their aim may be attributed to their too early presumption and confidence in their ability to reform and arrange a government, still disjointed and unpliable in its constituent parts.

1773 S. Johnson in J. Boswell Jrnl. Tour Hebr. (1785) 367 She had no notion of a joke,..had a mighty unpliable understanding.

1847 D. R. Stephen Mem. C. Evans iv. 94 First, You cannot modulate it [sc. the voice] as the occasion may require; and you fall into an unpliable, tedious monotony; and all natural cadence and emphasis is lost.

1897 60th Ann. Rep. Board of Educ. (Mass.) iv. 180 They have reached an age when the mind has become so stunted and unpliable that..they can never attain to good scholarship.

1932 Jewish Q. Rev. 22 348 A society that is becoming very unpliable.

1992 Publ. Eng. Goethe Soc. 61 35 Wieland..had undertaken what he considered to be improving modifications to the original Italian form because of the insurmountable difficulties it presented in his view for the unpliable German language.