irrefragable
Oct. 5th, 2021 07:43 amirrefragable (ih-REF-ruh-guh-buhl) - adj., impossible to refute, incontrovertible.
Yeah, stress on the second syllable, which I hadn't realized -- I'd been putting it on the penultimate. Also an archaic meaning, impossible to break or alter, and while it might look like that's the original sense, given that Latin fragare means to break, it isn't -- Latin refragare means to oppose/resist. Been around since around 1530 in the main sense above, while the archaic sense (applied especially to laws) developed a few decades later.
---L.
Yeah, stress on the second syllable, which I hadn't realized -- I'd been putting it on the penultimate. Also an archaic meaning, impossible to break or alter, and while it might look like that's the original sense, given that Latin fragare means to break, it isn't -- Latin refragare means to oppose/resist. Been around since around 1530 in the main sense above, while the archaic sense (applied especially to laws) developed a few decades later.
---L.