irreconcilable, a. (n.)
(ɪˌrɛkənˈsaɪləb(ə)l, ɪˈrɛkənsaɪləb(ə)l)
Also -cileable.
[ir-2.]
1. Of persons, their feelings, etc.: That cannot be reconciled or brought into friendly relations; implacably hostile. Const. to.
| 1599 Sandys Europæ Spec. (1632) 41 He may..have them for ever most firm and irreconcileable adversaries. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World ii. (1634) 412 That hee [Absalom] was irreconcilable to his Father. 1653 A. Wilson Jas. I 51 The irreconcileable malice of that party. 1693 Dryden Juvenal Ded. (1697) 1 There are no Factions, tho' irreconcileable to one another, that are not united in their Affection to you. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 5 ¶8 A Dispute about a Matter of Love, which..grew to an irreconcileable Hatred. Ibid. No. 79 ¶1 The Quarrel between Sir Harry Willit and his Lady..is irreconcilable. 1801 Ranken Hist. Fr. I. i. v. 157 Their minds were irreconcilable to the dominion of France. 1874 Green Short Hist. viii. §10. 573 In England Cromwell dealt with the Royalists as irreconcilable enemies. |
2. Of statements, ideas, etc.: That cannot be brought into harmony or made consistent; incompatible. Const. to, with.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. v. xi. 250 Many conclude an irreconcilable incertainty; some making more, others fewer. 1671 R. Bohun Wind 4 Their..Aeriall impressions, how different and irreconcileable to Ours? 1709 Berkeley The. Vision §71 Neither would it prove in the least irreconcilable with what we have said. 1761–2 Hume Hist. Eng. (1806) V. lxvii. 94 Bedloe's evidence and Prance's were in many circumstances totally irreconcilable. 1824 L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 5) I. 277 ‘Expected to have found him’, is irreconcilable to grammar and to sense. 1866 Geo. Eliot F. Holt v, Creeds that were painfully wrong, and, indeed, irreconcilable with salvation. 1870 Freeman Norm. Conq. (ed. 2) I. App. 567 There is nothing irreconcileable in the two statements. |
3. Math. Applied to paths between two fixed points in a surface, which paths cannot be made to coincide by gradual approximation without passing outside the surface.
Such are, e.g., two paths between opposite points in an anchor ring, which proceed in opposite directions; or two sea-routes between the N. and S. points of an island, which proceed along its E. and W. sides respectively.
| 1881 Maxwell Electr. & Magn. I. 19 Curves for which this transformation cannot be effected are called Irreconcileable curves. |
B. n. a. A person who refuses to be reconciled; esp. One of a political party who refuses to come to any agreement or make any compromise, or remains implacably opposed to an arrangement.
| 1748 Richardson Clarissa (1811) III. 178 Sleep and I have quarrelled; and although I court it, it will not be friends. I hope its fellow-irreconcilables at Harlowe-place enjoy its balmy comforts. 1878 Besant & Rice Celia's Arb. xx. (1887) 146 No Red Irreconcilable ever preached a policy so sanguinary and thorough. 1884 H. Spencer in Pop. Sci. Monthly XXIV. 731 From Oxford graduates down to Irish irreconcilables. |
b. pl. Principles, ideas, etc. that cannot be harmonized with each other.
| 1895 Westm. Gaz. 26 Aug. 3/3 In her endeavour to harmonise two irreconcilables—to be at once conventional and insurgent. |