English

Adjective

irredeemable

1. Not redeemable; not able to be restored, recovered, revoked, or escaped.
   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows:

     It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending crash—and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck.

   • 1909, Arthur Quiller-Couch, True Tilda, ch. 2:

     She was horribly frightened; but she had pledged her word now, and it was irredeemable.

2. (finance, of debts, currency, etc.) Not able to be cancelled by a payment or converted to another form of currency or financial instrument, especially one considered more secure or reliable.
   • 1776, Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ch. 3:

     The subscribers to a new loan, who mean generally to sell their subscription as soon as possible, prefer greatly a perpetual annuity, redeemable by parliament, to an irredeemable annuity, for a long term of years, of only equal amount.

   • 2005 Oct. 31, James Grant, "O Sage! O Confidence Man!," Forbes (retrieved 17 Aug 2010):

     Investors have always had to trust somebody or something. . . . But they have not always had to make a leap of faith about a nation's irredeemable paper currency. Up until Aug. 15, 1971 the dollar was exchangeable into gold at the rate of $35 to the ounce.

Synonyms

• unredeemable

Translations

References

• irredeemable in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• irredeemable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913