ppl. a. [UN-1 10.]
1. a. Of features, etc.: Expressionless, vacant, unintelligent.
1704. Steele, Lying Lover, III. i. Poor stupid insipid Lady Fad,… with that unmeaning Face of hers.
1760. W. Dodd, Hymn to Good-Nature, Poems (1767), 3.
| Daughter of Folly; whose unmeaning front | |
| Wears the soft simper of perpetual smiles! |
1815. Scott, Guy M., ix. Bertram turned a stupified and unmeaning eye on the messenger.
1836. Kingsley, Lett. (1878), I. 34. The old man spoke in his dreams and muttered with unmeaning visage and fixed eye.
b. Of persons: Having no serious aim or purpose.
1746. Eliza Heywood, Female Spect., No. 24 (1748), IV. 305. Being a fool, [she] was thoughtless, giddy, and unmeaning.
1812. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life (1870), I. 172. Peace be to them, sweet simpletons! as unmeaning … as their own dinner-bells.
1846. Mrs. Gore, Eng. Char., I. 40. The vapid, unmeaning, unconnected Lady P—.
2. Having no meaning or significance; meaningless: a. Of actions, conduct, etc.
1728. Eliza Heywood, trans. Mme. de Gomez’s Belle A. (1732), II. 228. Turning the Effect of his Admiration into the Appearance of an unmeaning Gallantry.
1776. Mickle, Camoen’s Lusiad, p. lxxvii. Unmeaning slaughter … comprise[s] the whole history of his regency.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. III. 320. Full of grimace, affectation, and unmeaning levity.
1869. J. Martineau, Ess., II. 229. The tendency … is not an unmeaning accident.
b. Of words, utterances, etc.
1709. Pope, Essay on Criticism, 355. At the … only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought.
1727. Boyer, Dict. Royal, II. s.v., Unmeaning Words.
1771. T. Percival, Ess. (1777), I. 6. [They] conceal their own ignorance … by unmeaning terms and pompous phrases.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xv. III. 559. That several neighbouring nations … thought this most unmeaning of all names worth borrowing.
1875. Fortnum, Maiolica, xi. 109. The unmeaning designs of the oriental porcelain.
absol. 1870. Disraeli, Lothair, lxxvii. I do not believe in the unmeaning.
3. Uttering nothing significant.
1743. W. Whitehead, Ep. Ann Boleyn, 90. Each distant Hint that hung On broken Sounds of an unmeaning Tongue.
