irresistibility

alternative misspelling proscribed irresistability

1. uncountableThe quality of being irresistible.

   5 more examples

   They came a little before five. I had, as usual, to sit next to Miss Twist, and to bear, as well as I could, many jokes, hints, insinuations, &c, as well as many plain advances, on the part of the young lady, not at all in the way of love and regard, but of affectation and vanity, as though presuming upon the irresistibility of her three hundred thousand charms.

   1800, Edward Nares, Thinks-I-to-Myself, J. N. Lewis, page 104

   The best writers of that denomination allow, that some Divine influences may be finally resisted; and that every kind of sanctifying influence may be/ and is, in fact, opposed by the depraved nature of man: but they assert, that there is a special operation on the mind, which, if afforded, will always ultimately become effectual, and prevail over every contrary principle. In the absolute irresistibility of grace, therefore, they do not believe at all; and although they sometimes employ improperly the term 'irresistible,' their explanations show, that they mean by it no more than that which will not be finally overcome.

   1814, The Eclectic Review, The Eclectic Review, page 333

   There arose in king James the First’s reign great and warm disputes concerning the decrees of God, and those other points that were settled in Holland by the synod of Dort against the Remonstrants; divines of both sides among us appealed to the Articles, and pretended they were favourable to them: for though the first appearance of them seems to favour the doctrine of absolute decrees, and the irresistibility of grace; yet there are many expressions that have another face, and so those of the other persuasion pleaded for themselves from these.

   1850, Gilbert Burnet, An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, D. Appleton, page 9

   He thought that it would be difficult to imagine anything 'loftier or more appropriate than the magnitude of form, irresistibility of grasp, indignant disdain, and sportive ease of action,' which denoted the demigod. The heroic contempt, the superfluity of strength, were marvellously rendered, and entitle this figure to a high rank among the masterpieces of Reynolds.

   1866, George Walter Prothero, John Gibson Lockhart, John Murray IV, John Taylor Coleridge, Rowland Edmund Prothero Ernle, Whitwell Elwin, William Gifford, William Machpherson, William Smith, The Gentleman's Magazine, John Murray, page 145

   When they were gone I felt very sad as I ruminated all they told me, and I was not comforted by subsequent conversations with the general, who confirmed as to matters of fact all they had stated and added many illustrations of the hardships and aflfronts put upon the subjugated by the dominant races. So long as the spell of our irresistibility lasts, no logic of abstract justice, no argument of policy, and no invocations of the principles of the Gospel will be needed.

   1876, Arthur Henry Bullen, David Henry, Edward Cave, John Bowyer Nichols, Joseph Hatton, Joseph Knight, John Henry Parker, John Nichols, John Gough Nichols, John Mitford, Sylvanus Urban, The Gentleman's Magazine, Grant and Company, page 725

   Antonyms: resistibility