a. (and sb.). [UN-1 7 b.]
1. Not favorable, in various senses: a. Of persons, opinions, etc.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke xix. 147. The Pharisees … thynke theimselues fortunate that they carry the deuill on theyre backes, ye roughest sitter possible and ye moste vnfauourable.
1678. Sir G. Mackenzie, Crim. Laws Scot., II. xxii. § i. (1699), 239. After a Crime is proved, the Pannel is most unfavourable.
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer., II. ¶ 12. Talavera, at last, made … an unfavourable report to Ferdinand and Isabella.
1779. Mirror, No. 32. He was pleased … to communicate his opinions. The last I found generally unfavourable both of men and things.
1800. C. B. Brown, Ormond, xiii. 146. His aversion to matrimony arose from those conceptions, but experience had shewn him that his conclusions, unfavorable as they were, had fallen short of the truth.
1835. T. Mitchell, Acharn. of Aristoph., 200, note. The insertion of a choriambus…, viewed with an unfavourable eye by Bentley and Elmsley.
1890. Retrospect Med., CII. 45. The prognosis was unfavourable only in severe cases.
1896. C. M. Skinner, Myths & Legends of our own Land, I. 249. Here in the old days two lovers held their tryst: a sturdy and honest young farmer of the neighborhood and the daughter of a man whose wealth puffed him with purse-pride. It was the plebeian state of the farmer that made him look at him with an unfavorable countenance.
b. Of conditions, circumstances, times, etc. Also const. to or for.
1748. Anson’s Voy., I. viii. 77. These tempests…, though unattended by any other unfavourable circumstance, were yet rendered more mischievous to us by their inequality.
1766. Smollett, Trav., xi. I. 174. I have always found a cold and damp atmosphere the most unfavourable of any to my constitution.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, III. 444. [She] thought the moment unfavourable for a tête-à-tête.
1846. Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. xvi. 277. I must dispose of the outlaying estates in Northamptonshire, and these times are unfavourable.
1874. J. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, xxiii. 302. In situations that would now be considered most unfavourable to their growth.
c. Of winds or weather.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xli. IV. 132. An unfavourable wind detained them four days.
1789. Charlotte Smith, Ethelinde, IV. 155. A successless hunt, the morning being frosty and unfavourable.
1820. W. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., I. 307 The winds were mostly unfavourable.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XIX. viii. V. 581. In spite of … the unfavorablest weather, it was … his fixed purpose to recapture Dresden.
† d. Of diseases, physical injuries, etc. Obs.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., clxiii. (1819), III. 217. They were seized with an unfavourable small-pox.
1793. Cowper, Lett. to J. Hill, 10 Dec. You mentioned … an unfavourable sprain that you had received.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxxiii. Her mind is totally alienated, which … is sometimes the consequence of an unfavourable confinement.
2. Of features or appearance: Ill-favored.
1776. E. Topham, Lett. Edin., 83. The men are large and disproportioned with unfavourable, long, and saturnine countenances.
1782. A. Highmore, Ramble Coast Sussex (1873), 47. She said I did not carry an unfavourable appearance.
1825. Scott, Talism., v. With all this most unfavourable exterior, there was one trait in the features of both which argued alertness and intelligence.
b. Creating a bad impression.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. IV. vi. 230. A procedure which bore a most unfavourable appearance.
3. sb. An unfavorable result.
1838. De Morgan, Ess. Probab., 42. But of these 36 throws, any one of the five unfavourables of the first throw may combine with any one of the second throw.
Hence Unfavorableness, Unfavourableness.
1764. Phil. Trans., LIV. 105. The best account … of my observation, however imperfect through the unfavourableness of the weather.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 123. The unsuitableness of the soil, the unpropitiousness of the climate, and the unfavourableness of the seasons.
