Unreasonableness

[UN-¹ 12.]

  1.  The quality (in things or actions) of being unreasonable or at variance with reason.

1532.  Dial. on Laws Eng. (ed. 2), II. xlviii. 122. It were a greate vnreasonablenes in the lawe if it shulde prohibit hym [etc.].

1560.  Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 305. Considering the vnreasonablenes of the thing.

1645.  Vane, Lost Sheepe, 24. The vnreasonablenesse of this assertion.

1691.  Ray, Creation, I. (1692), 18. The folly and unreasonableness of this … ungrounded Figment.

1748.  Anson’s Voy., III. ix. 388. The Commodore urging the unreasonableness of this procedure, from the inability of the forts to have done otherwise.

1778.  Miss Burney, Evelina, xlvi. The folly and unreasonableness of this speech.

1830.  Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 248. There are depths of unreasonableness, which surpass all human folly.

1886.  Law Times Rep., LIII. 660/1. The agreement is invalidated by the unreasonableness of the restriction.

  † b.  Unfairness, injustice. Obs.

a. 1533.  Ld. Berners, Huon, xviii. 48. Ye … haue well herde the grete vnresonablenes that the kynge do too one of oure peres. Ibid. The place wher as suche extorsyon and vnresonableness is vsed.

  c.  Immoderateness; excessiveness.

1665.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 282. The Ambassadour … acquainted his Master with the unreasonableness of the Turks demands.

1797.  Mrs. Radcliffe, Ital., xxxi. The unreasonableness of her claims was forgotten.

  2.  The quality (in persons) of being unreasonable in action, demands, etc.

1542.  Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 184. Here maye a manne double whether of these twoo thynges he ought rather to maruaill at, the kynges liberalitee in geuyng, or els the vnreasonablenes of the philosophier, in askyng.

1598.  R. Bernard, trans. Terence, Andria, V. i. You would (now at last) giue ouer to cumber me with your vnreasonablenesse.

1703.  Mrs. Centlivre, Beau’s Duel, V. i. Did ever man of your hairs ask such questions? I vow I blush at your unreasonableness.

1736.  Butler, Anal., I. vi. 156. This is vanity, conceit and unreasonableness.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xv. III. 595. The difficulties by which the government was beset on all sides, the malignity of its enemies, the unreasonableness of its friends.

1879.  L. Stephen, Hours in Library, Ser. III. 322. The grand unreasonableness of the average Englishman.

  † 3.  Lack of reason; irrationality. Obs.

1598.  Florio, Irationalita, vnreasonableness, brutishnes.

1647.  H. More, Song of Soul, I. ii. 88. But what with judgement doth them both compare? Is’t reason or unreasonableness, I pray.