ppl. a. Forms: 3 unbilefde, -bileued; 4 vnbylefed, 5 vnbeleued, etc.; 7– unbelieved. [UN-1 8.]

1

  † 1.  Unbelieving. Obs.

2

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 81. Þe grimliche wordes þe ure helende … gaf to andswere þe unbilefde iudeuisshe men.

3

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 260. Unbileued he is þet luueð to muchel & ȝisceð worldes weole & wunne.

4

a. 1400.  New Test. (Paues), Titus i. 16. Þei beþ abhomynabel, & vnbylefed, & reprefabel to eferich good werk.

5

c. 1450.  Mirk’s Festial, I. 139. Phylyp was send … forto prech Godis worde to þe vnbeleued pepuli.

6

  † 2.  Unbelievable, incredible. Obs.

7

c. 1425.  in Anglia, X. 342. Turmentede with vnbylevede sorowe.

8

1581.  Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 19. Nay, to so vnbeleeued a poynt hee proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a Prince, as to be a good horseman.

9

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., King & No King, II. ii. I made his valour stoop, and brought that name soar’d to so unbeliev’d a height, to fall beneath mine.

10

  3.  Not believed; disbelieved.

11

1603.  Shaks., Meas. for M., V. i. 119. Heauen shield your Grace from woe As I thus wrong’d, hence vnbeleeued goe.

12

a. 1619.  Fotherby, Atheom., Pref. (1622), B ij b. But yet specially, in the first point, of beleeuing that there is a God, that is of all the rest the most vnbeleeued.

13

1655.  J. Jane, in Nicholas Papers (Camden), II. 223. It cannot be long vnbeleeved, being soe farr advanced especially in the French leauge.

14

1819.  Wordsw., Haunted Tree, 27. Nor is it unbelieved, By ruder fancy, that a troubled ghost Haunts the old trunk.

15

1844.  Kinglake, Eöthen, viii. The unbelieved Cassandra was right after all.

16

1877.  Ruskin, Fors Clav., lxxxi. 250. All which teachings have … passed from deed and truth into mere monotony of unbelieved phrase.

17