inclement

comparative more inclement · superlative most inclement

1. Stormy, of rough weather; not clement.

   inclement weather

   5 more examples

   Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms / Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky; / Save on that side which from the wall of Heaven, / Though distant far, some small reflection gains / Of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud.

   1667, John Milton, “Book LXXV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 426-429

   How much more, if we pray him, will his ear / Be open, and his heart to pitie incline, / And teach us further by what means to shun / Th’ inclement Seasons, Rain, Ice, Hail and Snow, / Which now the Skie with various Face begins.

   1667, John Milton, “Book CCXC”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 1060-1064

   The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin, were all of the same colour. He has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.

   1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan)

   Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or pulpits, called crow’s-nests, in which the look-outs of a Greenland whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 35, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, they went together; at other times she was alone; but, she never missed a single day.

   1859, Charles Dickens, “third book, fifth chapter”, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: foul

2. obsoleteMerciless, unrelenting.

   By some paradoxical evolution rancour and intolerance have been established in the vanguard of primitive Christianity. Mrs. Spoker, in common with many of the stricter disciples of righteousness, was as inclement in demeanour as she was cadaverous in aspect.

   1921, Ben Travers, chapter 4, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

   1 more example

   He lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom!

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “34”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   Synonyms: pitiless, remorseless, unmerciful, unyielding, barbarous, bowelless, brutal, compassionless

3. archaicUnmercifully severe in temper or action.