† 1. Insolvent. Obs.–1
1656. Cowley, Misc., Pref. ¶ 5. I have the real excuse of the honestest sort of Bankrupts, which is, to have been made Unsolvable … by some notorious accidents and publike disasters.
2. Insoluble.
[1775. Ash.]
1821. J. Q. Adams, Report Weights & Meas., 79. The problem, hitherto unsolvable to man, of squaring the circle.
1865. Reader, 4 Feb., 130/1. He alone has produced paintings, before which we stand … as though they were unsolvable enigmas.
1894. S. Fiske, Holiday Stories (1900), 155. Who had assumed the name … and hidden the receipt in our butler’s pantry were unsolvable mysteries.
absol. 1894. H. Gardener, Unoff. Patriot, 6. Human longing to solve the unsolvable.
Hence Unsolvableness.
1884. Nonconf. & Indep., 10 Jan., 30/1. The question is depressing to the spirits in its very unsolvableness.
