a. and sb. [UN-1 7 b.]
a. adj. Not to be desired; objectionable.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 824. So to … render me more equal, and perhaps, A thing not undesireable, somtime Superior.
a. 1768. Secker, Serm. (1770), I. v. 113. It will provoke the better Part of their Inferiors to think ill of them, which is a very undesirable Thing.
1813. Lamb, in Gentl. Mag., June, 618/1. A little excess in that article is not undesirable in youth.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 142. A porter’s lodge, where undesirable visitors could be stopped.
b. sb. An undesirable thing or person.
1883. Athenæum, 20 Jan., 81/3. Why not, then, connect … ‘glanders’ and ‘gluttony’ as undesirables, at once?
1900. Daily News, 12 Nov., 7/5. Having among her passengers 42 ‘undesirables,’ deported from Capetown.
Hence Undesirableness.
1675. Owen, Indwelling Sin, xi. (1732), 137. It casts Death and undesirableness upon them all.
c. 1815. Jane Austen, Persuas., ii. The undesirableness of any other house … for Sir Walter.
1886. Athenæum 20 Feb., 267/2. The doctrine of the utter unreality and undesirableness of all life.
