Unpractised

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8.]

  1.  Not familiarized or skilled by practice; inexperienced, inexpert.

1551.  Robinson, trans. More’s Utopia, I. (1895), 49. Your newe made and vnpractysed soldiours.

1562.  A. Brooke, Romeus & Jul., 1416. A wise mans wit vnpractised doth stand him in no steede.

1606.  Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. i. 12. But I am … skillesse as vnpractis’d Infancie.

1672.  Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 207. To harden their unpractis’d modesty.

1748.  Anson’s Voy., III. viii. 380. Of so little consequence are the most destructive arms in untutored and unpractised hands.

1805.  Wordsw., Prelude, V. 589. In his youth … in that raw unpractised time.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 143. The most unpractised eye at once perceived that they were taller … than their successors.

1890.  Retrospect Med., CII. 109. The unpractised operator is far less likely to do harm with the forceps than with version.

  b.  Const. in.

1665.  Boyle, Occas. Refl., II. xx. 131. These are … altogether unpractis’d in that Civility.

1687.  Dryden, Hind & P., III. 614. The latter brood, who just began to fly, Sick-feathered and unpractis’d in the sky.

1759.  Hume, Hist. England, I. 96. Albany … was totally … unpractised in their language.

1844.  Upton, Physioglyphics, Pref. p. ii. A person unpractised in authorship.

1900.  Longm. Mag., March, 466. Supposing that I speak to anyone who is unpractised in the art.

  2.  Not practised; unemployed, untried.

1540.  Commemoration of Inestimable Graces of God, B ij. The old prouerbe … is not lefte vnpractised by the sayde Antichrist.

c. 1584.  An Abstract, Certaine Acts Parl. (title-p.), Certaine Canons, Constitutions, and Synodals prouinciall … for the most part heretofore vnknowen and vnpractized.

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., Maid’s Trag., II. i. I … must try Some yet unpractis’d way to grieve and die.

1686.  Col. Rec. Pennsylv., I. 184. An unsafe and hetherto unpractised way in procedure.

1753.  Hanway, Trav., XIV. x. (1762), II. 382. No barbarities were left unpractised.

1848.  Akerman, Introd. Study Anc. & Mod. Coins, v. 90. This description of artifice seems to have been … unpractised among the Romans.

  † b.  Untraversed, unfamiliar. Obs.

1621.  G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., I. (1626), 4. Ships … Then plow’d th’ vnpractiz’d bosom of the Flood.

1778.  Bp. Lowth, Transl. Isaiah, Notes 187. A journey … through desert and unpracticed countries.

  Hence Unpractisedness.

1628.  Earle, Microcosm. (Arb.), 61. He ascribes all honestie to an vnpractis’dnesse in the World.

1672.  Flamsteed, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 130. My unpractisedness in such observations at the first essays.