† 1. Lacking substance or standing. Obs.
1634. Jedburgh Town Council Records, 28 Nov. (MS.). That no person … set any of their houses or buiths to unresponsible persons.
1710. Ess. Hist. Last Ministry, 67. The losses sustain’d by employing Unresponsible Persons in the Collection of Taxes.
2. Irresponsible.
1653. [implied in unresponsibleness; see below].
1786. Burke, Charges agst. W. Hastings, V. ix. Thereby … changing him from a minister of the Company … to a dependant upon an unresponsible power.
1797. Gillies, Aristotle’s Ethics & Pol., II. 59, note. A power unbalanced and unresponsible, and therefore … not made for man.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), II. 333. Because the judges are unexperienced, uninformed, numerous, unresponsible.
1852. Grote, Greece, II. lxxxi. X. 610. Vesting in Dionysius a single-handed power … above the laws—unlimited and unresponsible.
Hence Unresponsibleness.
1653. Gauden, Hierasp., 439. That unresponsiblenesse to any other;… that independence or absolute liberty in their will.
