1. With object: Not beseeming or befitting (a person, etc.); unbecoming or inappropriate to. (Very common in 17th c.)
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. lxv. 394. Nowe it were vnbeseeming his power that he coulde not execute the thing that he had determined with himselfe.
1586. T. B., La Primaudaye’s Fr. Acad., I. 191. They judged the verie remembrance thereof to be unwoorthie & unbeseeming men of honor.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, I. § 27. You shall find them all to be very toyes, much unbeseeming Gods excellent Majesty.
1651. Wittie, trans. Primrose’s Pop. Err., I. ii. 40. But some thinke it a thing unbeseeming the dignitie of a physician, to prepare his Medicines.
1676. Hale, Contempl., I. 493. An unnecessary breaking of the rest of this day, and unbeseeming the solemnity of it.
1721. in Cath. Rec. Soc. Publ., VIII. 301. As being a thing Unbeseeming a Religious house.
a. 1721. Sheffield (Dk. Buckhm.), Wks. (1753), II. 153. The truth of it is, a criminal there had put me into a passion, a little unbeseeming a Judge.
1880. Swinburne, Study Shaks. (1895), 60. An office … no more unbeseeming the pupil hand of the future master, than [etc.].
† b. In quasi-adverbial use. Obs.
1645. Tombes, Anthropol., 9. Ye doe unbeseeming your priviledge.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., II. xviii. § 2. 190. He dare not think or speak unbeseeming the glory or goodnesse of God.
2. Unbecoming; offending against propriety or good taste. (Very common in 17th c.)
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. viii. § 9. All those things which men by the light of their naturall vnderstanding euidently know … to be beseeming or vnbeseeming.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. III. xiii. They … break many times into violent passions, oaths, imprecations and unbeseeming speeches.
1664. Pepys, Diary, 23 Sept. Minnes took occasion, in the most childish and unbeseeming manner, to reproach us all.
1671. H. M. trans. Erasm. Colloq., 433. What is more unbeseeming, than that an ignoble merchant should have store of money.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., I. 296. Larding their unbeseeming and inconsistent Prophecies, with … incongruous Latin.
1825. Lamb, Elia, II. The Wedding. The unbeseeming artifices, by which some wives push on the matrimonial projects of their daughters.
a. 1843. Southey, Doctor, ccxxii. Nor has it any unbeseeming levity, like this which is among Browne’s poems.
1860. Geo. Eliot, in Cross, Life (1883), II. 244. The Almighty above is as unbeseeming as painted Almighties usually are.
Hence Unbeseemingly adv., -seemingness.
1617. Collins, Def. Bp. Ely, II. x. 497. They dare not for horrour say that our Sauiour did vnwisely, or any way *vnbeseemingly.
1660. Stanley, Hist. Philos., IX. (1687), 521/2. They, under the pretence of his Doctrine, do many strange things, inveigling the young men unbeseemingly.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm. Phil. iv. 11, Wks. 1686, III. 63. All reason dictateth … that in being discontented we behave our selves very unbeseemingly and unworthily.
1623. Bp. Hall, Contempl., O. T., XVIII. iv. Against the disguise she had pleaded the *unbeseemingnesse for her person and state.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 191. That would be an unbeseemingness.
1723. Dk. Wharton, True Briton, No. 48, II. 422. He is to learn from the Unbeseemingness and Intemperances of others Passions, the better how to govern his own.
