unsufferable
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
unsufferable (comparative more unsufferable, superlative most unsufferable)
- Not able to be suffered, difficult or impossible to endure; insufferable.
- 1645 February 16 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 6 February 1645]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC:
- The heate of this place is wonderfull; the earth itselfe being almost unsufferable, and which the subterranean fires have made so hollow, by having wasted the matter for so many years, that it sounds like a drum to those who walke upon it […]
- 1734, Isaac Barrow, translated by John Kirkby, The Usefulness of Mathematical Learning Explained and Demonstrated: Being Mathematical Lectures Read in the Publick Schools at the University of Cambridge. […], London: […] Stephen Austen, […], →OCLC, page 48:
- [T]his Comparison of a Point in Geometry with Unity in Arithmetic is of all the most unsufferable, and derives the worst Consequences upon Mathematical Learning.
- 1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, page 194:
- [W]hilſt he heſitated there, the criſis of pleaſure overtook him, and the cloſe compreſſure of the vvarm ſurrounding fold, drevv from him the extatic guſh, even before mine vvas ready to meet it, kept up by the pain I had endur'd in the courſe of the engagement, from the unſufferable ſize of his vveapon, tho' it vvas not as yet in above half its length.
- 1813, Isaac Watts, The works of the Rev. Isaac Watts D.D. in nine volumes, Volume 6, Edward Baines, page 504:
- It is possible that these expressions of God's covering Moses with his hand while the glory of God past by, and Moses seeing the back parts of God, may signify no more than this, that in this particular appearance of God he arrayed himself in beams of light of such unsufferable splendor, that it would have destroyed the body of Moses had not God sheltered and protected him […]
- 1839, Edward Wells, William Dowsing, The rich man's duty to contribute liberally to the building, rebuilding, repairing, beautifying, and adorning of churches, Oxford: T. Combe, page 139:
- [W]ould it not be an unsufferable crime in a steward, on the strength of the forementioned false imagination, for to lay out great sums of his lord's money on building himself a noble house, and the mean while to let his lord's house lie in a mean, or even ruinous condition?
Usage notes edit
Like insufferable, this is usually meant as a derogatory expression of frustration targeted at something.
Translations edit
insufferable — see insufferable