Meanings
comparative more immeritorious · superlative most immeritorious
- Unworthy of merit; not deserving of merit; not meritorious.
As long as the defence is credible and can be reasonably substantiated so that the counterclaim is not evidently immeritorious, the attacked party has little to lose, and may gain time.
2004: Damien Géradin, Modernisation and Enlargement: Two Major Challenges for EC Competition Law, page 137 (Intersentia; →ISBN, 9050954324)1 more example
Their acceptance indeed, as a formula, may show a willing and tractable spirit, and they may to that extent have a value : but such acceptance differs of course from belief in being admittedly a voluntary act, and not a mere immeritorious and reluctant yielding to the brute weight of evidence.
1883, Mind, volume 8, B. Blackwell, page 24
Origin
im- (“un-”, “not”) + meritorious (“worthy or deserving of merit”); compare the Latin immeritōrius
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
immeritorious. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/immeritorious
“immeritorious.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/immeritorious. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “immeritorious,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/immeritorious.
Source: immeritorious on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.