Adjective

(en adjective)

Which cannot be refuted; indisputable, clearly right, incontrovertible.

* 1885 , , Nuttie's Father , ch. 20:

Bulfinch, a solicitor at Redcastle, came to him with irrefragable proofs of gross peculation on the part of the bailiff.

* 1913 , , John Barleycorn , ch. 19:

[W]e didn't. That is the irrefragable fact. We didn't.

* 2001 Jan. 14, , " Bookend: White House Book Club," New York Times (retrieved 18 Nov 2012):

Lionel Trilling has cautioned us that an idea derived from reading is not a unitary, irrefragable thing but something modified in its transmission.

Adjective

(er)

Physically secure and certain, non-failing, reliable.

Certain in one's knowledge or belief.

*

, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.}}

Certain to act or be a specified way.

(obsolete) Free from danger; safe; secure.

* Shakespeare

Fear not; the forest is not three leagues off; / If we recover that we are sure enough.

(obsolete) Betrothed; engaged to marry.

* Sir T. More

The king was sure to Dame Elizabeth Lucy, and her husband before God.

* Brome

I presume that you had been sure as fast as faith could bind you, man and wife.