unserviceableness

The unfavourable issue was ascribed to the vessels 'unserviceableness for voyages in the Polar Sea, in consequence of which the Board of Admiralty ordered two other boats,

The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II Alexander Leslie 1866

Lucy was seated by the bedside, wrapped in a loose dressing-gown, and looked as if she had not slept for several nights; while Miss Wodehouse, who, notwithstanding all her anxiety to be of use, was far more helpless than Lucy, stood on the side next the door, with her eyes fixed on her sister, watching with pathetic unserviceableness for the moment when she could be of some use.

The Perpetual Curate 1862

We shall, however, find some very notable relations existing between the two groups of the wild flowers of dry land, which represent, in the widest extent, and the distinctest opposition, the two characters of material serviceableness and unserviceableness; the groups which in our English classification will be easily remembered as those of the Thyme, and the

Proserpina, Volume 1 Studies Of Wayside Flowers John Ruskin 1859

We had our two-year-old beards and flowing locks trimmed, however, and turned our attention to the boot-shops, but bootless we were destined to remain, for Jack failed to find a pair that were big enough for him in the whole town, and I, if I had persisted in the effort to accustom myself to having my feet enclosed in leather after so long a period of freedom, should have reduced them to a state of complete unserviceableness.

Head Hunters of the Amazon: Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure 1923

But in all other cases, when these two circumstances have not already decided the combat, therefore, particularly in case the destruction of the enemy's force is the principal object, the decision is reached at that moment when the conqueror ceases to feel himself in a state of disintegration, that is, of unserviceableness to a certain extent, when therefore, there is no further advantage in using the successive efforts spoken of in the twelfth chapter of the third book.

On War — Volume 1 Carl von Clausewitz 1805