non-durableadj.n.

1885 E. Abbott Francis Bacon, Acct. Life & Works 401 We ought therefore to inquire about the nature of durable and non-durable bodies (stones and vegetables, as well as animals).

1906 Biometrika 4 395 He frankly tells you that he can approximately catch the artist's shades, but that he can only do so by using non-durable printer's inks.

1966 Encycl. N.Z. I. 724/1 As building authorities have rightly been unwilling to accept this non-durable sap-timber, a sizable timber preservation industry has grown up.

1992 Brit. Jrnl. Middle Eastern Stud. 19 144 (title) Durable and non-durable dynasties.

1935 Jrnl. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 30 363 Recently the Federal Reserve Board separated the weighted series which compose its index of manufactures into two groups which it designates as ‘durable products’ and ‘non-durable products’.

1988 A. Walker Enemy Territory 99 They came to expect it to be right and natural that they should have consumer durables (and increasingly non-durable goods).

1996 Sunday Times (Electronic ed.) 25 Aug. Manufacturers foresee ‘steady growth in demand for most categories of durable and non-durable goods’.

1934 Steubenville (Ohio) Herald-Star 29 Sept. 6/4 The big manufacturers of steel,..etc. still are bumping the depression bottom while the makers of non-durables..were nearly back to the 1923-25 level.

1946 Business Conditions (Federal Reserve Bank Chicago) Dec. 3/1 Wartime trends in non-durable goods employment differed from those in durable goods in two ways: (1) the peak occurred earlier in non-durables.

1965 H. I. Ansoff Corporate Strategy (1968) v. 87 Producers of durables and non-durables.

1993 San Francisco Examiner 1 Aug. e2/6 I would say consumer non-durables by and large have been disappointing.