a. [UN-1 7 b.]
1. Not workable; not capable of being worked, put into operation or practice, etc.
Freq. from c. 1880.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 984. The mine is rendered unworkable until fresh air is introduced.
1861. Mill, Repr. Govt., vii. 152. Some profess to think the plan unworkable.
1869. A. Macdonald, Love, Law & Theol., vi. 102. Lord Aberdeen’s Act is quite unworkable.
1887. W. S. S. Tyrwhitt, New Chum in Bush, v. 84. To prevent his run being rendered unworkable by having the best parts of it taken from him.
b. Of ships: Unmanageable.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxiii. (1856), 186. She had split her rudder-post so as to make her unworkable.
1885. Athenæum, 5 Dec., 726/3. The soldiers were untrained … and the ships unworkable.
c. Impossible to manage, direct, control, etc., on account of size, numbers, or lack of coherence.
1862. ‘Shirley’ (J. Skelton), Nugæ Crit., ix. 426. An undisciplined and unworkable rabble.
1874. Morley, Compromise, 83. The participation of large numbers of people immediately becomes unworkable.
1895. E. Owen, in Wks. G. Edwards, p. xiii. Minera, a new parochial district, formed out of the large and unworkable parish of Wrexham.
1896. Baden-Powell, Matabele Campaign, v. We have broken up the original Buluwayo Volunteer Field Force as an unworkable and rather overpaid organisation.
2. Of materials: Incapable of being worked upon or wrought into shape.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., iii. 57. The white stone … is a beautiful though unworkable rock.
1867. W. W. Smyth, Coal & Coal-mining, 47. Of the measures … the upper half contains only a few unworkable beds.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., II. 163/2. Alpaca wool … laid aside … as useless, unworkable material.
fig. 1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics, IX. i. II. 134. Mystics imperfectly subservient—unworkable raw material, and as such flung into the fire.
Hence Unworkableness.
1877. Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. II. 60. The absolute unworkableness of the new constitution.
1879. Contemp. Rev., Oct., 290. The unworkableness of the various systems proposed.
