a. and sb. (UN-1 7.)
1800. Monthly Mag., X. 317. An emphatic syllable is long; an unemphatic syllable, short.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Lect. Metaph., xxi. (1859), II. 19. The participle knowing is too vague and unemphatic to be employed.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 74. The general action … languid and unemphatic.
b. As sb. An unstressed syllable.
1815. Monthly Mag., XXXIX. 118. The regular arrangement of their longs and shorts,… their emphatics and unemphatics.
So Unemphatical a. (Worcester, 1846, citing Brown), -ically adv. (Webster, 1847).
1902. Anne Douglas Sedgwick, The Rescue, v. 50. Madame Vicaud—very unemphatically, not at all as if she felt that it needed turning—took the lead of the conversation. Ibid., viii. 80. Claire, as this old friend appeared upon the field of vision, put her hand on Damier’s arm, and, drawing him towards one of the smaller streets that slope down to the spacious avenue, said, smiling unemphatically, ‘Don’t let us meet him.’
