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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#m1)

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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#m2)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#x1)
- In the parable, the unforgiving servant would not cancel a small debt. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#x2)
- The desert is unforgiving; without water you cannot survive. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#x3)
- The mountain was unforgiving to climbers who did not plan well. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#x4)
- Exams can feel unforgiving: one wrong answer loses the mark. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#x5)
- She tried not to be unforgiving when her friend apologised. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/#x6)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/religion-ethics/15-parables-talents-sower-and-more/15/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «unforgiving» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/U/unforgiving/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.