unresponsibleadj.

1629 T. Jackson Treat. Divine Essence ii. 15 Lest any man should misconceive the..title of Almightie to bee but as a faire promising frontispice to an unresponsible worke.

?1666 Abstr. Case F. Rockley 7 To Assign the same..and also the aforesaid Statute of 1800 l...unto the said Wilkinson and Beard (two persons unresponsible for so great a charge).

1710 A. Boyer Ess. Hist. Last Ministry 67 The losses sustain'd by employing Unresponsible Persons in the Collection of Taxes.

a1717 R. Taylor Disc. on Fall & Misery of Man (1725) 259 Our Lord Jesus Christ is a surety that made legal satisfaction..for all the debts charg'd upon him, and it was not possible that he could prove insolvent and unresponsible.

1766 C. Lloyd Exam. Princ. Late Right Hon. Gentleman 26 What is Mr. Pitt doing? Nothing less than taking a more lucrative office, and equally unresponsible.

1786 E. Burke Articles of Charge against W. Hastings v. 100 Changing him from a minister of the Company..to a dependant upon an unresponsible power.

1827 J. Bentham Rationale Judicial Evid. II. iii. xv. 333 Because the judges are unexperienced, uninformed, numerous, unresponsible.

1871 Sporting Gaz. 14 Oct. 732/2 The public were left to gather what information they could from the returns sent in..by anonymous and unresponsible conservators of the various salmon districts.

1902 Washington Post 30 Aug. 7/3 He was under the sway of the blind god and so unresponsible for either his remarks of his eyesight.

1993 Canad. Living May 61/1 I've written before about how unresponsible I feel for my children's various accomplishments.

2003 Philos. & Phenomenol. Res. 67 228 Since hard determinism puts us all on a par (unfree and unresponsible), it cannot form the basis for a social order.

1764 Gentleman's Mag. Aug. 359/1 Trusting them [sc. papers] to the hands of a common & unresponsible person.

1766 Gentleman's Mag. Sept. 528/1 The channel of promotion was not in the hands of those who held the employments of the state; but of a secret and unresponsible Favourite.

1875 Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Daily Sentinel 22 Oct. 2/2 He had never known of a more unjust and unresponsible indictment than this one.

1912 Blacksmiths Jrnl. July 29/1 A howling, seething mass of unresponsible people who are about to change this beautiful, quiet city of California into one of the most disorderly.

1961 Evening Independent (Massillon, Ohio) 29 Apr. 4/5 This is a very rash and unresponsible method for attacking the reputations of thousands.

1989 J. Fletcher in R. M. Baird & S. E. Rosenbaum Euthanasia x. 88 By logical inference any interference with nature..was impious. Ethically, it was unresponsible.

2009 Farmington (New Mexico) Daily Times (Nexis) 30 June A recent report of a minor horse virus..has Canadian officials overreacting in an unresponsible manner.

1835 J. Knowles Pronouncing & Explanatory Dict. Eng. Lang. Unresponsibility, without responsibility [sic; perh. an error for the state of being without responsibility].

1855 H. W. Beecher Star Papers 351 To have a sudden and unexpected day of absolute rest and unresponsibility intercalated in the week was a strange and blessed luxury.

1935 E. Hemingway Green Hills Afr. xii. 235 I..settled, happily, with the darkness into the unresponsibility of victory; only emerging to direct M'Cola in where to cut.

1995 Stud. Eng. Lit. 1500–1900 35 810 Not every analysis of society's gender inequalities, or even of male bias and unresponsibility, is feminist.

1653 J. Gauden Hieraspistes 439 That unresponsiblenesse to any other;..that independence or absolute liberty in their will.

1970 Hope (Arkansas) Star 30 June 2/1 We put the blame on the unresponsibleness of the government.