1. Incapable of being reclaimed or reformed; incorrigible: a. Of actions, qualities, etc.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades, 438/1. The Iewes … for their vnreclaymeable affiaunce in the lawe are vtterly reiected.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 305. He … faleth into some furious and vnreclaimable euill qualities.
1652. Sclater, Civ. Magistracy (1653), 8. Men, who are full of savage and unreclaimable desires.
b. Of persons. Also const. from.
a. 1656. Bp. Hall, Serm., 2 Pet. i. 10, Wks. 1863, V. 681. That dreadful place of torment, which is the unavoidable portion of careless and unreclaimable sinners.
1680. C. Nesse, Ch. Hist., 195. He finds her unreclaimable from her idols.
a. 1716. Blackall, Wks. (1723), I. 258. He is not unreconcileable to us until we become unreclaimable.
1717. Fleetwood, Burdett’s Lett., 11. ’Tis the Proceeding of the … tenderest Fathers … with their Sons, when so enormously ungracious, wicked, and unreclaimable.
absol. 1685. J. Scott, Chr. Life, II. iv. § 1. To pour out the Vials of his Wrath upon the obstinate and unreclaimable.
† 2. Untamable, uncontrollable. Obs.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., 401. This kind of men so quicke and nimble, so untamed and unreclaimable.
1611. Cotgr., Bœuf bran,… a kind of wild Oxe … vnreclaimable, and onely good for the shambles.
3. Not liable to be claimed back.
1777. Potter, Æschylus, Supplicants, 107. That we might be permitted here to dwell Free, unreclaimable, inviolate.
Hence Unreclaimably adv.
1645. Bp. Hall, Peace Maker, vii. 57. Those … who doe pertinaciously, and unreclaimably maintaine Doctrines destructive to the foundation of Christian Religion.
1652. Heylyn, Cosmogr., III. 106. Unreclamably addicted to their antient Judaism.
