online medical dictionary | definition of incurable

A person diseased beyond cure.

1. Not capable of being cured; beyond the power of skill or medicine to remedy; as, an incurable disease. "A scirrh is not absolutely incurable." (Arbuthnot)

2. Not admitting or capable of remedy or correction; irremediable; remediless; as, incurable evils. "Rancorous and incurable hostility." (Burke) "They were laboring under a profound, and, as it might have seemed, an almost incurable ignorance." (Sir J. Stephen)

Synonyms: Irremediable, remediless, irrecoverable, irretrievable, irreparable, hopeless.

Origin: F. Incurable, L. Incurabilis. See In- not, and Curable.

(01 Mar 1998)