unthinkableadj.n.

c1430 Life St. Kath. (1884) 48 Þey sawe al þe prison ful of vnthencable and vnspecable swetnesse of sauour.

1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection ii. sig. Hviii^v He hath gyuen..treasour spirituall: whiche be in valour vnthynkable.

1530 Myroure Oure Ladye (Fawkes) (1873) ii. 183 Wherfore the nombre of crownes is to be beleued vnthyncable.

1623 W. Lisle in tr. Ælfric Saxon Treat. Old & New Test. p. xxiv The losse whereof is vnspeakeable, vnthinkable, vnsufferable misery.

1674 N. Fairfax Treat. Bulk & Selvedge 193 The unthinkable care and forecast in all its evennesses and entwinings.

1879 M. Pattison Milton 112 The bathos is unthinkable.

1897 Westm. Gaz. 6 July 2/1 You wander..in cool glades of unthinkable beauty.

c1445 R. Pecock Donet 84 A þing fer aboue alle creaturis þouȝt vnþenkable.

?1536 tr. Erasmus Serm. Chylde Jesus i. sig. A.iiii Iesus whiche by an vnspeakable, nay with an vnthynkable reason is borne god of god.

1830 W. Taylor Hist. Surv. German Poetry I. 453 Separate from her To live is quite unthinkable—is death.

1884 H. Spencer in Contemp. Rev. July 33 From whatever point of view we consider it, Bentham's proposition proves to be unthinkable.

1871 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues III. 134 The negative of measure or limit; the unthinkable, the unknowable; of which nothing can be affirmed.

1897 F. H. Balfour (title) Unthinkables.

1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. SSSii The peynes that he suffred..excedeth vnthynkably, all the peynes that any creature myght suffre.

1895 Young England XVI. 30/1 Our hearths are warmed by the stored-up sunshine of unthinkably distant ages.

1860 W. Hamilton in Princeton Rev. July 494 How can it be then, if we can annihilate all we can conceive—namely, the phenomena, that we must think the unthinkable negation to remain? Is it because we cannot get hold of it at all in thought, and if therefore we smuggle it into the mind by any logical trick, we cannot get it out again?]

1882 T. Davidson in Mind 7 499 It will probably be said that we cannot think a finite without thinking the infinite along with it... We might as well say that we cannot think the thinkable without thinking the unthinkable, which is a manifest absurdity.

1957 R. Champigny tr. J.-P. Sartre in Jrnl. Philos. 54 326 In short, he learns how to think the unthinkable, how to uphold what cannot be upheld, and posit as true what he knows to be manifestly false.

1992 Jrnl. Philos. 89 243 Some discourses take us to the edge of meaning, whereby we are tempted to express the inexpressible or to think the unthinkable.

1962 H. Kahn (title) Thinking about the unthinkable [i.e. the possibility of nuclear war].

1976 Harvard Business Rev. Sept. 115/1 When we start thinking about the unthinkable in advertising, we might consider how many ads ‘unsell’ rather than sell.

1988 J. Trefil Dark Side of Universe i. 18 Today we honor Copernicus..because he was the first person in ‘modern’ times who had the courage to think the unthinkable and the courage and perseverance to carry his idea beyond the realm of philosophical speculation.

1993 New Scientist 31 July 5/3 The traditional attitude has been that our dams can never fail. But many people say we should think the unthinkable.

1995 Independent 29 Sept. 21/1 As Donald Dewar..wrestles with the task of translating the party's social justice document into a workable policy, Field is given the licence to think the unthinkable.

2001 Mail on Sunday (Nexis) 1 Apr. 118 Sven Goran Eriksson had begun to think the unthinkable. ‘Just imagine a World Cup without England,’ he said.