Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Impossible to answer or refute; incontrovertible.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not to be satisfactorily answered; not susceptible of refutation: as, an unanswerable argument.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Not answerable; irrefutable; conclusive; decisive.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not
answerable ; impossible toanswer . - adjective Impossible to
dispute orrebut ;irrefutable ;conclusive . - noun Something that cannot be answered.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective impossible to answer
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Burke, Porson, Dr. Warburton, and Dr. Farmer, pronounced this piece of criticism convincing and unanswerable; but Dr. Johnson and Steevens would not be convinced, and, moreover, have contrived to answer the _unanswerable_.
Characteristics of Women Moral, Poetical, and Historical 1827
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Life is rarely spelled out for anyone … some of life’s greatest questions may remain unanswerable and I love a TV show that respects its audience by not telling them what to think at every turn and lets them find their own interpretation within the structure of the story.
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It is precisely this way of introducing the so-called unanswerable questions about torture that shows Cohen's true leanings.
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Now this baffling and probably unanswerable question -- unanswerable, that is, in terms which go beyond the physical concomitants of life -- has played the part in biology which the alchemists 'quest played in chemistry.
Progress and History Francis Sydney Marvin 1903
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'That is a statement which one may call unanswerable,' said Rollo with a significant line of lip.
The Gold of Chickaree Susan Warner 1852
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Site to ask public and celebrities including Sarah Beeny and Nicky Clarke to help answer its top 10 'unanswerable' queries
Ask Jeeves marks 10th birthday with 'unanswerable questions' promotion 2010
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A decade and 1. 1bn questions after Ask Jeeves launched in the UK, the website is asking the public to help answer its top 10 "unanswerable" queries – including "Did Tony Soprano die?" and "Do blondes have more fun?".
Ask Jeeves marks 10th birthday with 'unanswerable questions' promotion 2010
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It would prevent you from posing these sorts of challenges as if they're some kind of unanswerable obstacle to my position.
What Is Good? James F. McGrath 2009
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Dawkins presented his so-called Ultimate Boeing 747 argument in a chapter entitled "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God," branded his argument "unanswerable," and boasted that it had stumped all theologians who had met it.
'The God Delusion' Dennett, Daniel C. 2007
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Meanwhile the Secretary of State, a member of the Government that has nearly bankrupted the Post Office, told the dynamic duo of Llew and Peter that those campaigning to save the post offices had an "unanswerable" case.
Archive 2003-12-01 2003
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