▪ I. inordinate, a.
(ɪnˈɔːdɪnət)
[ad. L. inordināt-us disordered, irregular, f. in- (in-3) + ordināt-us, pa. pple. of ordināre to order, arrange, regulate.]
1. Not ‘ordered’; devoid of order or regularity; deviating from right or rule; irregular, disorderly; not regulated, controlled, or restrained.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. iii. xxv. (Add. MS. 27,944), Anon þe puls is swift and þicke quakinge and inordinat. 1485 Act 1 Hen. VII, c. 7 Statutes..for the Punition of unlawful and inordinate Huntings in Forests. 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 414 That the cryme which is inordinate may be reduced to the order of Justice. 1625 Fletcher Noble Gent. ii. i, When did ye there keep such inordinate hours? 1692 Ray Dissol. World i. (1732) 3 A rude and inordinate heap. 1774 Strange in Phil. Trans. LXV. 43 From the inordinate course of the Appenines in general, the vulcanic hills of that chain afford no observation so interesting to physical geography. 1898 J. R. Illingworth Div. Immanence iv. §4. 94 To remedy this lawlessness, to restore this inordinate state of humanity to order. |
2. Not kept within orderly limits, immoderate, intemperate, excessive.
| c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. ¶340 The clothyng..is cowpable..for the superfluitee, or for the inordinat scantnesse of it. c 1425 Orolog. Sapient. ii. in Anglia X. 342/2 Ouerleyde with a inordinate sorowe and vnskilfulle heuynesse. c 1530 Pol. Rel. & L. Poems 31 Inordynat bilding causith hasty sale of placys. 1545 Brinklow Compl. 6 b, The inordinate inhansyng of rentys. a 1665 J. Goodwin Filled w. the Spirit (1867) 15 Drunkenness with wine, or inordinate drinking, is altogether inconsistent with a being filled with the Spirit. 1716 Addison Freeholder No. 30 ¶5 He only taxes us with our inordinate Love of Pudding. 1791 Burke Let. Memb. Nat. Assembly Wks. VI. 31 Their object is to merge all natural and all social sentiment in inordinate vanity. 1840 Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) III. vii. 108 Making us pay an inordinate rent for the luxury. 1872 Yeats Growth Comm. 284 The prices..were so inordinate. |
3. Of persons: Not conforming or subject to law or order, disorderly; unrestrained in passions, feelings, or conduct; immoderate, intemperate.
| c 1450 tr. De Imitatione iii. xiii. 81 O hou shorte, hou inordinat, hou false, hou foule þei all be! 1555 Philpot Let. in Foxe A. & M. (1684) III. 509 The Anabaptists, an inordinate kind of men stirred up by the Devil, to the destruction of the Gospel. 1597 Bacon Ess., Coulers Good & Evill vii. (Arb.) 149 Sanctuary men which were commonly inordinate men and malefactors. a 1684 Leighton Comm. 1 Pet. i. 1 Yet were there even then amongst them, as the writings of the apostles testify, false brethren, and inordinate walkers. 1857 Buckle Civiliz. I. vii. 341 Inordinate admirers of antiquity. 1871 Browning Pr. Hohenst. 1824 No more foolish dread O the neighbour waxing too inordinate A rival. |
† 4. Math. a. inordinate proportion, a ‘proportion’ or statement of equality of ratios in which the terms are not in regular order. b. Geom. Of a figure: Irregular; not equilateral and equiangular.
| 1570 Billingsley Euclid v. def. xix. 136 An inordinate proportionality is, when as the antecedent is to the consequent, so is the antecedent to the consequent: and as the consequent is to an other, so is an other to the antecedent. 1667 H. More Div. Dial. ii. xx. (1713) 151 The Spirits of Men..are as Isosceles betwixt the Isopleuron and Scalenum, not so ordinate a Figure as the one, nor so inordinate as the other. 1691 Ray Creation i. (1692) 123 There are only three rectilineous and ordinate figures [triangles, squares, hexagons] which can serve to this purpose; and inordinate or unlike ones must have been not only less elegant and beautiful, but unequal. 1823 Crabb Technol. Dict., Inordinate proportion, that in which the order of the terms compared is irregular or disturbed. |
▪ II. † inˈordinate, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. prec.]
trans. To render inordinate.
| 1646 Gaule Cases Consc. 51 To deprave the will, to inordinate the affections, to perturb the passions. |