1382. Wyclif, Jer. ii. 6. Wher is the Lord, that … ladde vs ouer by desert, by the lond vnhabitable? Ibid. (1388), Jer. vi. 8. Lest … Y sette thee forsakun, a loond vnhabitable [1382 vndwellable].
a. 1485. Fortescue, Wks. (1869), 486. He … made Babyloyne unhabitable.
1527. in Hakluyt, Voy. (1599), I. 219. The … opinion, that vnder the line Equinoctiall for much heate the land was vnhabitable.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 297. That opinion … touching the vnhabitable clime vnder the poles.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 90. Next into this stands Rhodes,… once couered with the sea, or at least an vnhabitable marish.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., ix. 452. The soul of a wicked man becomes a very unhabitable and incommodious place to itself.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., I. v. (1850), 76. They that have made Britain more unhabitable than the Torrid Zone.
1733. Swift, On Poetry, 181. So Geographers in Afric-Maps … o’er unhabitable Downs Place Elephants for want of Towns.
1887. Spectator, 15 Oct., 1381. The whole deep Northern fringe … is unhabitable and uninhabited except by a few savages.
Hence Unhabitableness.
1661. Boyle, Physiol. Ess. (1669), 27. The Unhabitableness of the Torrid Zone.
1668. H. More, Div. Dial., III. xxxiv. I. 523, marg. Difficulties touching the Habitableness or Unhabitableness of the Planets.
