| 释义 |
insurmountable, a.|ɪnsəˈmaʊntəb(ə)l|
[in-3; perh. after F. insurmontable (Cotgr. 1611).]
That cannot be surmounted, overcome, or passed over.
1696Phillips (ed. 5), Insurmountable, that cannot be overcome by Labour and Industry. a1704Locke (J.), This difficulty is insurmountable, 'till I can make simplicity and variety the same. 1797Mrs. Radcliffe Italian vi, The angles of the insurmountable walls which fenced the garden from the precipices below. 1848Lytton Harold vii. iv, The rock is well nigh insurmountable to those who know not the passes. 1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 150 Perhaps those prejudices might not prove insurmountable. 1876T. Hardy Ethelberta (1890) 292 Between himself and her there was that kind of division which is more insurmountable than enmity.
Hence insurmountaˈbility (Craig, 1847); insurˈmountableness, the state or quality of being insurmountable (Bailey vol. II, 1727); insurˈmountably adv., so as not to be surmounted or overcome; ‘invincibly, unconquerably’ (J. 1755).
1860Mill Repr. Govt. (1865) 62/2, I do not think that the people of England have deserved to be, without trial, stigmatized as insurmountably prejudiced against anything which can be proved to be good either for themselves or for others. |