a. [UN-1 7 b.] Incapable of being healed; incurable.
1382. Wyclif, Ecclus. xxviii. 30. Lest parauenture … thi fallyng be vnheleable in to the deth. Ibid., Isaiah, xiv. 6. The Lord to-brosede the staf of vnpitous men … with an vnheleable plage.
1611. Cotgr., Incurable,… vnhealeable.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Warwick., III. (1662), 125. He in his Youth was a afflicted with an unhealable Sprain in his Hip.
1795. Coleridge, Lett. to Southey, 135. Of innovation they see dreadful and unhealable consequence.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, xx. In the midst of feuds unhealable.
1891. F. W. Newman, J. H. Newman, p. vi. A most painful breach, through mere religious creed, broke on me…, and was unhealable.
absol. 1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. V. xii. Lafayette indites his emphatic Letter … against Jacobinism; which … will not heal the unhealable.
