ppl. a. [UN-1 8 b. Cf. MDu. on-, MHG. ungehouwen, ON. úhǫgginn (MDa. u-, Sw. ohuggen).]
1. Not hacked or cut with weapons.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 1945. Besely we shapid Out of þe handis vn-hewyn of oure hatill fais.
2. Not hewn or cut into shape; not fashioned or shaped by hewing.
1382. Wyclif, Josh. viii. 39 (MS. Douce 369). An auter of stones vnhewen þe whiche eiren haþ not touchid.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., IV. xlv. 359. A Stone unhewn has been set up for Neptune.
1797. Mrs. Radcliffe, Italian, xviii. The walls, of unhewn marble, were high and strengthened by bastions.
1804. Ann. Rev., II. 191. An unhewn log of wood … decorated with red feathers.
1853. W. Richards, Heimburg, etc., 47.
| No towering monument records her loss; | |
| Few words rehearse the tale; an unhewn cross | |
| Tells where she slumbers, and from man’s rude tread | |
| Guards the last narrow dwelling of the dead. |
1857. Dufferin, Lett. High Lat. (ed. 3), 309. This fringe of unhewn timber that lined the beach.
1887. Bowen, Æneid, III. 688. Pantagia’s harbour, a gorge in the unhewn stone.
b. fig. Unpolished, rough, rugged.
1659. Pell, Impr. Sea, 44 Ignorant, knotty, illiterate, and unhewn Sailors.
1687. Montague & Prior, Hind & P. Transv., Wks. 1907, II. 18. I hate such a rough unhewen Fellow as Milton.
1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Beau’s Duel, IV. i. I hope the world will distinguish the difference between a rough, unhewn soldier, and a polish’d Gentleman.
1850. Marsden, Early Purit., iii. 71. Cartwright is described as unhewn and awkward.
