Unreliable

a. (UN-¹ 7 b.)

1

In common use from c. 1860.

2

1840. De Quincey, in Blackw. Mag., XLVIII. 516. Alcibiades … was too unsteady, and (according to Mr. Coleridge’s coinage) ‘unreliable.’

3

1859. Maury, Phys. Geog., xiv. 232. Wind and weather in this part … are very unreliable and changeable.

4

1874. W. R. Greg, Rocks Ahead, 63. This calculation is … not only unreliable, but purely deceptive.

5

Hence Unreliableness.

6

1862. F. Hall, Hindu Philos. Syst., 86. They are involved in the suspicion of unreliableness.

7

1872. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lxxiii. 4. The unreliableness of mere feelings shown.

8