[UN-2 3.] trans. To cease to love (a person, etc.).
Sometimes possibly ‘not to love’: see UN-1 14.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, V. 1698. I ne kan … withinne myn herte fynde To vnlouen yow.
1575. Peterson, trans. Della Casa’s Galateo, 8. Ynough to cause men,… if they did loue vs, to vnloue vs againe.
1640. Fuller, Joseph’s Coat, 122. How then shall I unlove the world, which hath been my bosome Darling so long?
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 310, ¶ 1. They bid me love him, and I cannot unlove him.
1847. C. Brontë, J. Eyre, xviii. I have told you … that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now.
1855. Browning, In a Balcony, 582. Remember, I … Would … Do all but just unlove him.
absol. 1561. T. Hoby, trans. Castiglione’s Courtyer, II. (1577), H iv. More apt to brawling and chyding,… that love and vnlove al at a time.
1635. J. Hayward, trans. Biondi’s Banish’d Virg., 10. If we returne not to our former state of freedome, and unlove againe.
1859. Mrs. Stowe, Minister’s Wooing, xxv. We never know how we love till we try to unlove.
1881. Emma J. Worboise, Sissie, xv. I am sure one cannot unlove, just because one’s esteem is lessened!
