In common use from c. 1800.
1743. Young, Nt. Th., IV. 625. Ye Quietists,… who mildly make An unobtrusive tender of your hearts.
1790. Han. More, Relig. Fash. World (1791), 131. Those secret habits of self-controul, those interior and unobtrusive virtues.
1828. Mackintosh, Char. Canning, Wks. 1846, II. 457. His manner was simple and unobtrusive; his language always quite familiar.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xiv. I trace the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive proceedings.
1890. ‘L. Falconer,’ Mlle. Ixe, vi. Captain Leslie kept unobtrusive, but attentive watch.
Hence Unobtrusiveness.
1797. Jane Austen, Sense & Sens., xlvi. She saw only an emotion … in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise.
1826. Disraeli, V. Grey, III. viii. He is an object of observation from his very unobtrusiveness.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., II. 152/2. All walls, however decorated,… must retire even behind the furniture by their unobtrusiveness.
