Unexceptionable

a. [UN-¹ 7 b.]

  1.  To whom, or to which, no exception can be taken; perfectly satisfactory or adequate.

  a.  Of persons.

1664.  Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur., VI. 276. All which I have said was done in the Presence of unexceptionable Witnesses.

1699.  T. Baker, Refl. Learn., iii. 27. Cicero tho the most unexceptionable [authority] has not escaped their censure.

1740.  Cibber, Apol. (1756), I. 48. Not even the Revolution … has been able to furnish us with unexceptionable statesmen.

1796.  Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, II. 193. She affectionately embraced the unexceptionable Lavinia.

1868.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1877), II. ix. 431. There was now no such unexceptionable rival to oppose to the Norman.

  b.  Of material things. (Rare before 19th c.)

1681.  Flavel, Meth. Grace, xvi. 301. The blood of Christ…; ’tis unexceptionable blood, being … untainted by sin.

1756–7.  trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), II. 425. This statue … is in all its parts unexceptionable.

1835.  Browning, Paracelsus, V. 455. Fest. This cell? Par. An unexceptionable vault: Good brick and stone.

1852.  H. Rogers, Ecl. Faith, 168. Questionable as was the entertainment for the mind, that for the body was unexceptionable.

  c.  Of character, conduct, style, taste, etc.

1697.  C. Leslie, Snake in Grass (ed. 2), 359. And the Lives of these Seperatists were as un-exceptionable as any of the Quakers.

1716.  M. Davies, Athen. Brit., III. 31. His English style is unexceptionable.

1742–3.  Johnson’s Debates (1787), II. 503. The authority of this man, my Lords, cannot indeed be urged as unexceptionable and decisive.

1794.  S. Williams, Vermont, 183. The most unexceptionable evidence ought to be produced.

1826.  F. Reynolds, Life & Times, II. 126. His taste was unexceptionable, and his judgment was never sullied by prejudice.

1848.  Mill, Pol. Econ., II. xv. § 1. 478. Lending his capital on unexceptionable security.

1884.  Law Rep., 9 App. Cases 558. I am … of opinion that rule 32 is unexceptionable.

  2.  Admitting of no exception. rare^–1.

1871.  Ruskin, Fors Clav., vii. 9. That being the, alas, almost unexceptionable lot of human creatures.

  Hence Unexceptionability.

1837.  Chambers’s Jrnl., 8 July, 192.

a. 1849.  Poe, Whipple, etc., Wks. 1864, III. 388. I—with a very partial modification of the imagery …—may elevate the passage into unexceptionability.