ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not habituated by long practice; inexperienced. Const. in.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, I. xi. In plain truth, he was a man unhackneyed and unpractised in the world.
1785. G. A. Bellamy, Apology, III. 94. I was then unhackneyed in the villainies of mankind.
1814. Scott, Wav., xxxii. He had a sort of naiveté and openness of demeanour, that seemed to belong to one unhackneyed in the ways of intrigue.
absol. 1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, III. 112. Public amusements, to the young and unhackneyed, give entertainment without requiring exertion.
2. Not rendered commonplace or stale by frequent use or contact.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. 93. Her English was racy, unhackneyed, proper to the thought to a degree that only original thinking could give.
1856. G. Brimley, Ess. (1858), 236. To open to her almost untried and certainly unhacknied regions of beauty.
1880. Academy, 27 Nov., 390/1. His [picture] … shows a research after unhackneyed effects.
Hence Unhackneyedness.
1884. Saintsbury, in Ward, Eng. Poets, III. 218. There is almost always something novel in his dressing up of his images and a suggestive unhackneyedness in their expression.
