irreparable

View more Miscellaneous videos

Irreparable, meaning 'that cannot be recovered or made good', is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, and is used of circumstances and relationships, typically qualifying words such as consequences, loss, harm, injury, and damage. The word used to describe physical objects, machines, etc., that cannot be repaired is irrepairable (or unrepairable, not repairable, beyond repair), pronounced with the stress on the third syllable as in repair; but irreparable damage is the normal expression whether or not the damage is physical:

These people were supposed to be making us fit and instead they were doing irreparable damage to my heart and lungs—J. Herriott, 1977

The strikers had defied a decree...to end the strike, which he said was causing irreparable damage to the economy—Keesings, 1990

Headcount is down from a peak of 1,400 to 562,...and presumably that's about as far as it can go without irreparable damage to the business—business website, British English 2002.

Previous:	irrelevance, irrelevancy, irregardless, irrefutable
Next:	irreplaceable, irrepressible, irresistible

adjective

Offering no hope or expectation of improvement: cureless, hopeless, incurable, irremediable. See hope/despair.

adj

Definition: unable to be fixed
Antonyms: fixable, mendable, repairable, reparable

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - uoprettelig, uerstattelig

Nederlands (Dutch)
niet (meer) te repareren

Français (French)
adj. - irréparable

Deutsch (German)
adj. - irreparabel, nicht wiedergutzumachend

Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - ανεπανόρθωτος, αγιάτρευτος

Italiano (Italian)
irreparabile

Português (Portuguese)
adj. - irreparável

Русский (Russian)
непоправимый

Español (Spanish)
adj. - irreparable, irremediable

Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - irreparabel, ohjälplig, obotlig, oersättlig

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
不能修补的, 不能挽回的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 不能修補的, 不能挽回的

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 고칠 수 없는, 불치의

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 修理できない, 取り返しのつかない

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(صفه) متعذر إصلاحه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮שלא ניתן לתיקון, חסר תקנה‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.