v. [UN-2 3.] trans. To disinter; to take out of the ground again.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 581. Exhumo, to vnberye.
1481. Caxton, Godfrey, cvi. 162. Whan the peple afoote knewe this, they ranne, And there vnburyed them, And toke them out of theyr sepultures and graues.
1530. Palsgr., 766/2. It shulde seme that he hath done some great offence, that they unbury hym nowe.
1567. Jewel, Def. Apol., 100. The same Pope Steuin vnburied his Predecessour Pope Formosus, and defaced, and mangled his naked carkesse.
1605. Willet, Hexapla Gen., 250. The Sichemites … would rather haue vnburied them.
1647. Trapp, Comm. Rev. xi. 9. They unburied and burned the bones of Hermannus Ferrariensis after they had sainted him.
1848. Gallenga, Italy, I. 61. As long as there remain … inscriptions to decipher, or ruins to unbury.
1876. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. II. 132. The medicine by which vampires were cured was to unbury them, drive a stake through them [etc.].
b. fig. or in fig. context.
1620. Shelton, Quix., II. xlix. 321. Because they come not in a fit time to haue audience: straight they back-bite … him, gnaw his bones, and vnbury his ancestors.
a. 1739. Jarvis, Quix. (1749), II. III. v. 217. Speaking ill of us, unburying our bones, and burying our reputations.
1839. Lytton, Richelieu, I. i. Your breast holds both my secrets; Never Unbury either!
1862. H. Aïdé, Carr of Carrlyon, I. 309. The secret is ours. No one has a right to demand us to unbury our past.
1887. Browning, Parleyings, Fust & Friends. Unbury that brow! Look up, that thy judge may read clear in thine eyes!
Hence Unburying vbl. sb.
1899. S. Butler, Shaks. Sonn., 117. To suppose that he sanctioned the unburying, is to deny the commonest instinct of humanity.
