Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Impossible to refute or controvert; indisputable.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not refragable; incapable of being broken down or refuted; incontrovertible; undeniable; not confutable: as, an irrefragable argument; irrefragable evidence; an irrefragable opponent.
- Synonyms Unanswerable, indisputable, unquestionable, indubitable, irrefutable.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Not refragable; not to be gainsaid or denied; not to be refuted or overthrown; irrefutable; unanswerable; incontestable; undeniable
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Which cannot be
refuted ;indisputable , clearly right,incontrovertible .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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By proofs exactly of the same linguistic kind as those by which the modern Spanish, French, and other Latin dialects can be shown to have all radiated from Rome as their centre, the old traditions of the eastern origin of all the chief nations of Europe have been proved to be fundamentally true; for by evidence so "irrefragable" (to use the expression of the Taylorian professor of modern languages at Oxford), that "not an English jury could now-a-days reject it," Philological Archæology has shown that of the three great families of mankind -- the Semitic, the Turanian, and the
Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 James Young Simpson 1840
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Confine yourself to the Fact, man, to the irrefragable Fact.
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Barleycorn sends his White Logic, the argent messenger of truth beyond truth, the antithesis of life, cruel and bleak as interstellar space, pulseless and frozen as absolute zero, dazzling with the frost of irrefragable logic and unforgettable fact.
Chapter 35 2010
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But -- and the everlasting, irrefragable fact remains: HER FEET ARE BEAUTIFUL, HER EYES ARE
Chapter 21 2010
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I only knew love, the divine and irrefragable fact, that is all.
THE END OF THE STORY 2010
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` The fact, man, the irrefragable fact! 'of Ernest's was ringing in my consciousness.
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Responding to the concern that the courts had placed too rigid a test on whistleblowers -- a key precedent demands that an employee have access to "irrefragable proof" before being eligible for protection -- the 111th Congress revised the act so that the test is "whether a disinterested observer with knowledge of the essential facts" could conclude with the whistleblower that the alleged violations were made.
Feisal G. Mohamed: "See Something, Say Something" And Impunity for Profiling Feisal G. Mohamed 2011
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He was an earth-man in his devotion to the irrefragable fact, and his logic was admirable though frosty.
Chapter 14 2010
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Responding to the concern that the courts had placed too rigid a test on whistleblowers -- a key precedent demands that an employee have access to "irrefragable proof" before being eligible for protection -- the 111th Congress revised the act so that the test is "whether a disinterested observer with knowledge of the essential facts" could conclude with the whistleblower that the alleged violations were made.
Feisal G. Mohamed: "See Something, Say Something" And Impunity for Profiling Feisal G. Mohamed 2011
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` The fact, man, the irrefragable fact! 'he would proclaim triumphantly, when he had brought one of them a cropper.
Chapter 1: My Eagle 2010
chained_bear commented on the word irrefragable
"'I assert nothing, Jack, but the lady's reputation is very far from being perfect, as I know from another source, and I strongly advise you to take no decided step until you have some irrefragable independent evidence of her state — until you have really sifted the matter.'" -- Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate, 168
February 7, 2008
bilby commented on the word irrefragable
"This organization, which is as clear and universal as if it were indeed the expression of an irrefragable law, has at its central pole, pain instead of pleasure. The pain of sexual frustration, of repressed tenderness, of denied curiosity, of isolation in the ego, of greed, suppressed rebellion, of hatred poisoning all love and generosity, permeates our sexuality. What we love we destroy. Censorship is the outward and continuing expression of this distortion of the human erotic faculty."
- 'The Wet Dream Film Festival', Germaine Greer in Suck, 1971.
April 2, 2008
Jubjub commented on the word irrefragable
I fragged you! No take-backs!
December 22, 2009
knitandpurl commented on the word irrefragable
"In September I planted a line of spruce saplings along the west portico, against the better judgment of Rodgers—and now they have all but one of them died, which I view as final and irrefragable evidence that I have entered my senescence."
A Death in the Small Hours by Charles Finch, pp 274-275
January 17, 2014
knitandpurl commented on the word irrefragable
"We have had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence, at once so slight and so irrefragable, of a subtle disease, that had long since begun to eat into the real substance of his character."
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
March 22, 2023