unprocurable

English

WOTD – 27 June 2011

Etymology

From un- +‎ procurable.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ʌnpɹəˈkjʊəɹəb(ə)l/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adjective

unprocurable (comparative more unprocurable, superlative most unprocurable)

1. Unable to be procured.

   Synonym: unobtainable

   Antonyms: obtainable, procurable

   • 1884, Richard F[rancis] Burton, “The Proto-Sideric or Early Iron Age of Weapons”, in The Book of the Sword, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, page 98:

     It is clear, for instance, in Central Africa, where copper and tin were unprocurable, that man must first have used iron.

   • 1917 June 1, “(please specify the article title)”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     We have been told in many plaintive articles and letters in the London press that servants nowadays are almost unprocurable, and even the best people are having to shut up part of their houses and live in one floor, and so on.

   • 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001:

     But it needed desperate courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick or certain poison, were completely unprocurable.

Translations

unable to be procured — see unobtainable