Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Impossible to reclaim; being such that reclamation is precluded.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not reclaimable; incapable of being reclaimed; that cannot be restored or redeemed: as, an irreclaimable criminal; irreclaimable land.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Incapable of being reclaimed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Incapable of being reclaimed; not reclaimable; unable to be restored or redeemed; as, an irreclaimable criminal; irreclaimable land.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective insusceptible of reform

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ir- +‎ reclaimable

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Examples

  • “Kid McCoy was supposed to be an irreclaimable tomboy, but in this crucial moment the eternal feminine came triumphantly to the fore.”

    Dear Pen Pal Heather Vogel Frederick 2009

  • “Kid McCoy was supposed to be an irreclaimable tomboy, but in this crucial moment the eternal feminine came triumphantly to the fore.”

    Dear Pen Pal Heather Vogel Frederick 2009

  • “Kid McCoy was supposed to be an irreclaimable tomboy, but in this crucial moment the eternal feminine came triumphantly to the fore.”

    Dear Pen Pal Heather Vogel Frederick 2009

  • “Kid McCoy was supposed to be an irreclaimable tomboy, but in this crucial moment the eternal feminine came triumphantly to the fore.”

    Dear Pen Pal Heather Vogel Frederick 2009

  • Levity so unfeeling, and a spirit of extravagance so irreclaimable, were hopeless prognostics; yet Cecilia would not desist from her design.

    Cecilia 2008

  • Who or what has worked him into an animosity so irreclaimable, I cannot conjecture, nor will he tell; but something darkly mysterious has part in his wrath and his injustice.

    Cecilia 2008

  • The youth, however, had a wild and irreclaimable propensity to dissipation, which finally sent him to serve in the corps long maintained in the service of the States of Holland, and called the Scotch Dutch.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • The father remained the same — poorer, shabbier, and more dissolute – looking, but the same confirmed and irreclaimable drunkard.

    Sketches by Boz 2007

  • This turnkey had given him to understand that he was lodged, like some few others in the jail, apart from the mass of prisoners; because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and irreclaimable, and had never occupied apartments in that mansion before.

    The Old Curiosity Shop 2007

  • And then how pitiful to think that he — with all his gifts — should be irreclaimable, after all.

    Hedda Gabler 2006

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