INCURABLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does incurable mean? 

• INCURABLE (noun)
  The noun INCURABLE has 1 sense:

1. a person whose disease is incurable

  Familiarity information: INCURABLE used as a noun is very rare.

• INCURABLE (adjective)
  The adjective INCURABLE has 2 senses:

1. incapable of being cured

2. unalterable in disposition or habits

  Familiarity information: INCURABLE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INCURABLE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person whose disease is incurable

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("incurable" is a kind of...):

diseased person; sick person; sufferer (a person suffering from an illness)

• INCURABLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Incapable of being cured

Context example:

an incurable addiction to smoking

Antonym:

curable (able to be cured or healed)

Derivation:

incurability; incurableness (incapability of being cured or healed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unalterable in disposition or habits

Context example:

an incurable optimist

Similar:

inalterable; unalterable (not capable of being changed or altered)

Derivation:

incurability (incapability of being altered in disposition or habits)

 Context examples 

CJD is an incurable — and ultimately fatal — transmissible, neurodegenerative disorder in the family of prion diseases.

(NIH scientists and collaborators find infectious prion protein in skin of CJD patients, National Institutes of Health)

The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

An easy or painless death, or the intentional ending of the life of a person suffering from an incurable or painful disease at his or her request.

(Euthanasia, NCI Dictionary)

My father’s care and attentions were indefatigable, but he did not know the origin of my sufferings and sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

DLBCL is usually curable, but it recurs in up to 40% of patients and is then often incurable.

(Tumor DNA in Blood Reveals Lymphoma Progression, NIH)

The World Health Organization reports that gonorrhea is becoming harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat, warning that it could become incurable in the not-too-distant future.

(Vaccine for Meningitis Shows Some Protection Against Gonorrhea, VOA)

This novel research could lead to new therapeutic approaches for treating or delaying the progression of neurodegenerative conditions that are currently incurable, if the findings are expanded.

(New Mechanisms Found of Cell Death in Neurodegenerative Disorders, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Retinitis pigmentosa is an incurable and unpreventable blinding eye disease that affects 1 in 4,000 people.

(Immune system can slow degenerative eye disease, National Institutes of Health)

We shall probably see much to wish altered in her, and must prepare ourselves for gross ignorance, some meanness of opinions, and very distressing vulgarity of manner; but these are not incurable faults; nor, I trust, can they be dangerous for her associates.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her early impressions were incurable.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)