a. [UN-1 7 b.] Incapable of being split by wedges; uncleavable.
In mod. use only in echoes of the Shaks. passage, with a tendency towards the wider meaning ‘very hard, stubborn, or difficult to deal with’: freq. used by Carlyle.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., II. ii. 116. Mercifull heauen, Thou rather with thy sharpe and sulpherous bolt Splits the vn-wedgable and gnarled Oke, Then the soft Mertill.
[1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), V. 521. Men, like oaks, are … ‘gnarled and unwedgeable;’ facts, like deals, are fissile.]
1837. Carlyle, Misc. (1840), V. 135. He, being unwedgeable, has remained in antiquarian cabinets.
1880. Spectator, 5 June, 722. Propositions which lie buried in these gnarled and unwedgeable periods.
