a. [UN-1 7 b.]
1. Incapable of being instructed.
c. 1475. Cath. Angl., 378/2 (A.), Vn Techeabylle, indocibilis.
1580. Hollyband, Indocile, vntractable, vnteachable.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 188. The ignorant person that knoweth not himselfe … is as vnteachable a beast as can be.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., 42. Our Saviour at no time exprest any great desire to teach the obstinate and unteachable Pharises.
1707. Reflex. upon Ridicule, 387. They are more unteachable, more heady, more interested.
1797. Coleridge, Osorio, IV. iv. 182. And so the babe grew up … A pretty boy, but most unteachable.
1871. Meredith, H. Richmond, xlvii. I chafed at his unteachable spirit.
absol. and as sb. 1819. Shelley, Cyclops, 492. Let us with some comic spell Teach the yet unteachable.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-day Pamph., ii. 14. If I had schoolmasters,… do you imagine I would set them on teaching a set of unteachables…?
2. Incapable of being imparted by teaching.
a. 1667. Petty, in Sprat, Hist. R. Soc., 306. This being infinite and almost unteachable by words.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, I. xxvi. His was minstrel’s skill, he caught The art unteachable, untaught.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, v. (1861), 116. We are continually surprised with graces … not only unteachable, but undescribable.
1867. Lewes, Hist. Philos. (ed. 3), I. 215. Opinions … which in other dialogues Socrates is made to exhibit as untaught, perhaps unteachable.
Hence Unteachableness.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 462. Doe not ignorant persons continue in blindnes and vnteachablenes?
1702. Penn, Fruits Solit., II. § 243. The worst part of this Vanity is its Unteachableness.
1850. L. Hunt, Autobiog., II. 79. When kings themselves tried hard to make honest men republicans by their apparent unteachableness.
