irredeemable

ir- +‎ redeemable

• IPA^(key): /ɪɹəˈdiːməbəl/

irredeemable

1. Not redeemable; not able to be restored, recovered, revoked, or escaped.
   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:

     It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending crash—and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck.

   • 1909, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 2, in True Tilda:

     She was horribly frightened; but she had pledged her word now, and it was irredeemable.

2. (finance, of debts, currency, etc.) Not able to be cancelled by a payment or converted to another form of currency or financial instrument, especially one considered more secure or reliable.
   • 1776, Adam Smith, chapter 3, in The Wealth of Nations:

     The subscribers to a new loan, who mean generally to sell their subscription as soon as possible, prefer greatly a perpetual annuity, redeemable by parliament, to an irredeemable annuity, for a long term of years, of only equal amount.

   • 2005 October 31, James Grant, “O Sage! O Confidence Man!”, in Forbes, retrieved 17 August 2010:

     Investors have always had to trust somebody or something. . . . But they have not always had to make a leap of faith about a nation's irredeemable paper currency. Up until Aug. 15, 1971 the dollar was exchangeable into gold at the rate of $35 to the ounce.

• unredeemable

irredeemable (plural irredeemables)

1. (finance) A financial instrument that cannot be freely redeemed.

• “irredeemable”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “irredeemable”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.