unforgiving

«unforgiving» in Mova's school dictionary: An unforgiving person does not forgive people easily and… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (unforgiving; more unforgiving, most unforgiving)

meaning for a pupil

1) An unforgiving person does not forgive people easily and keeps blaming them for wrongs they did. tree →

2) An unforgiving place, weather or task is very hard and does not allow any mistakes, as an unforgiving desert or an unforgiving mountain. tree →

sense in the lessons

In ethics and RE, being unforgiving is contrasted with forgiveness, which Christians and many faiths teach as good; in Bible parables an unforgiving servant is punished. In adventure stories and geography, deserts, seas and cliffs are unforgiving — a small mistake can be deadly. Phrases: «unforgiving heat», «an unforgiving climate», «the unforgiving servant».

examples

• He was unforgiving and never spoke to his brother again. tree →
• In the parable, the unforgiving servant would not cancel a small debt. tree →
• The desert is unforgiving; without water you cannot survive. tree →
• The mountain was unforgiving to climbers who did not plan well. tree →
• Exams can feel unforgiving: one wrong answer loses the mark. tree →
• She tried not to be unforgiving when her friend apologised. tree →

note

«Un-» + «forgiving». Do not confuse with «unforgivable», which describes a wrong that is too bad to forgive. Unforgiving describes the person (or place); unforgivable describes the act.

In the corpora

• The unforgiving servant was forgiven a huge debt but refused to forgive a small debt owed to him.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «unforgiving» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.