A. adj. That cannot be attained or reached.
1662. Bp. Hopkins, Serm., Funeral (1685), 52. Those thirty or forty years, which were judged by thee in thy childhood an unattainable age.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. xxi. § 40. The will … cannot, at any time, be moved towards what is judged, at that time, unattainable.
1736. Pope, Lett. to Swift, 25 March. A View of the useful and therefore attainable, and of the un-useful and therefore un-attainable, Arts.
1771. Junius’ Lett., lxiii. (1788), 334. This, though a wicked purpose, is neither absurd nor unattainable.
1809. Edin. Rev., XIV. 283. The great body of the people never yet engaged eagerly in the pursuit of an unattainable object.
1860. Ruskin, Unto this Last (1862), 80. Though absolute justice be unattainable, as much justice as we need for all practical use is attainable.
B. sb. 1. An unattainable thing. rare.
1661. Glanvill, Van. Dogm., 112. Temperamentum ad pondus, may well be reckon’d among the three Philosophical unattainables.
1786. Cowper, Lett. to Lady Hesketh, 10 April. Range and jack [in a kitchen] are not unattainables; they may be easily supplied.
2. With the: That which is not attainable.
1857. Maurice, Ep. St. John, xx. 340. In one sense I can admit that man is always striving after the unattainable.
1882. Miss Braddon, Mt. Royal, I. ii. 101. All women sigh for the unattainable.
Hence Unattainableness; -ably adv.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. xx. § 11. Despair is the thought of the unattainableness of any Good.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home (1879), 371. A strange repulsion and unattainableness in the very spell that made her beautiful.
1894. Hall Caine, Manxman, III. xxv. She would be with him always;… the more reproachfully and unattainably, because she would be the wife of another man.
