ppl. a. [UN-1 8. Cf. MDu. ongehandelt, OHG. ungehandôlt, MDa. uhandlet (not negotiated).]
1. Of horses, etc.: Not broken in; untamed.
1558. N. Co. Wills (Surtees 1912), 12. My yong blacke hambling gelding unhandlyd.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., V. i. 72. A wilde and wanton heard Or race of youthful and vnhandled colts.
1639. T. de Gray, Expert Farrier, 302. Horses unhandled, to wit, in their youth.
1812. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. 68. Every description of horse, or mule, whether previously broke or unhandled.
1902. Kipling, The Islanders, 21. Sons of the sheltered city—unmade, unhandled, unmeet—Ye pushed them raw to the battle.
2. Not dealt with or treated of.
1613. Shaks., Hen. VIII., II. ii. 58. Cardinall Campeius … Ha’s left the cause o’ th’ King vnhandled.
1657. Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 79. The extraction of oyles is yet unhandled.
b. Untried, unemployed.
1826. Galt, Last of Lairds, xi. 103. There’s no a claw … the whilk Caption will leave unhandled.
3. Not touched with the hand. Also fig.
a. 1657. R. Loveday, Lett. (1663), 218. Those [delights] that … after an advantagious intermission return fresh and unhandled to the senses.
1745. Eliza Heywood, Female Spect., No. 17 (1748), III. 258. The plumb unhandled lost its bloom.
1794. Coleridge, Lett. (1895), 59. I, too, possessed the tender irritableness of unhandled sensibility.
