Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not retraceable.

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

  • adjective Incapable of being retraced; not retraceable.

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

  • adjective Not retraceable; unable to be retraced.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • More than to anything else he owed his power to his pledge, never violated, that he would never commit his followers to any irretraceable step without the consent of the Council, in which they were fully represented on a democratic basis.

    Ulster's Stand For Union Ronald John McNeill 1897

  • Having risen to the greatness he coveted, Amursana meditated casting aside the prop by which he had risen; but before he took an irretraceable step he resolved to make use of the

    China Demetrius Charles Boulger 1890

  • Before committing ourselves to the dubious and irretraceable course of "Government ownership," or to the infectious expedient of a

    The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays 1909 Ambrose Bierce 1878

  • Admitting all these possibilities, I would entreat you to take no irretraceable step towards relieving the States lately in rebellion from all national control, until such favorable changes are clearly and unmistakably ascertained.

    Report on the Condition of the South Carl Schurz 1867

  • 'That ever spider twisted from her womb,' sometimes begins to swell, to grow, to widen its distance rapidly, travels off into boundless spaces remote from the true centre, spaces incalculable and irretraceable, until hope seems extinguished and return impossible.

    The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 Thomas De Quincey 1822

  • As well as internal tides which swing to and fro about an average level, there is a drift which carries the fauna bodily along an 'irretraceable course.'"

    The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told J. Arthur Thomson 1897

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