Unprepared

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8.]

  1.  Of persons: Not in a state of preparation; not ready (for defence, reply, etc.).

1549.  Cheke, Hurt Sedit. (1569), G ij b. Although ye thinke your selues able to match with a fewe vnprepared Gentlemen, and put them from their houses.

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 79. Where so euer they fownde any of owre men vnprepared, they slewe them.

1606[?].  Daniel, Funeral Poem Earl Devon., Wks. (1623), 11. He brauely came to disappoint his foe, And many times surpris’d him vnprepared.

1667.  Milton, P. L., VIII. 197. What is more,… renders us in things that most concerne Unpractis’d, unprepar’d, and still to seek.

1695.  Tryon, Dreams, i. 3. Such discourses seem very … extravagant to their unprepared Apprehensions.

1760.  Goldsm., Cit. W., iv. We were overtaken by a heavy shower of rain. I was unprepared; but they … had large coats.

1818.  Byron, Ch. Har., IV. cxxvii. Lest the truth should shine Too brightly on the unprepared mind.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., v. I. 662. Cornish was arrested … and was brought altogether unprepared to the bar of the Old Bailey.

1889.  Gretton, Memory’s Harkb., 165. His Lordship requested one of the clergymen … to preach the sermon. Naturally they one and all declined, as unprepared.

  absol.  a. 1643.  S. Godolphin, Quatrains, ii. 11. The unprepar’d this grace do find, Ye cool and do refresh the mind.

  b.  Const. for, or to with inf.

1549.  Cheke, Hurt Sedit. (1569), F ij. Exeter … being … vnfurnished, vnprepared, for so long a siege.

1678.  Proph. & Predict. Jas. Usher (Hindley, III), 11. Look that you be not found unprepared for it.

1722.  Hamilton, Wallace, VIII. (1816), 135. Wallace … Surpris’d the English, unprepar’d for fight.

1794.  S. Williams, Hist. Vermont, 174. That they might not be wholly unprepared to begin their course.

1819.  Scott, Leg. Montrose, xvii. Being taken by surprise, they were totally unprepared for resistance.

1865.  Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. xv. I am rather unprepared to see you.

  c.  spec. Not prepared for death.

1594.  Shaks., Rich. III., III. ii. 65. ’Tis a vile thing to dye,… When men are vnprepar’d.

c. 1600.  Chalkhill, Thealma & Cl., 1215. Death at no time finds goodness unprepared.

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., Maid’s Trag., V. i. Stir not; if thou dost, I’le take thee unprepar’d, thy fears upon thee, That make thy sins look double.

1665.  Boyle, Occas. Refl., II. xi. Upon a Death Bed,… that very Thought might justly prove Dismal to an unprepar’d Man.

1796.  Southey, Joan of Arc, X. (1853), 124. Hurried the confessor To shrive them, lest with unprepared souls They to their death might go.

1846.  Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. xii. 215. The slaughter of hundreds … of human beings totally unprepared.

  transf.  1897.  B. Camm, Benedict. Mart. in Eng., i. 31. Carried off by sudden and unprepared death before the priest could be summoned.

  † 2.  Const. of. Not provided with. Obs.^–1

1732.  J. Louthian, Form of Process (1752), 45. If the Prisoner, through Ignorance, come unprepared of Lawyers.

  3.  Not made ready; left, introduced, taken, etc., without special preparation.

1595.  Shaks., John, II. i. 560. This vnlook’d for vnprepared pompe.

a. 1751.  Bolingbroke, Study Hist., ii. (1752), I. 41. The events we are witnesses of … appear to us very often original, unprepared, single, and un-relative.

1796.  Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, V. 397. Her sight, thus unprepared,… might be too affecting for his weak frame.

1838.  G. F. Graham, Mus. Comp., 23/2. Monteverde began to introduce unprepared sevenths and ninths.

1858.  Greener, Gunnery, 376. An ordinary unprepared gun, taken from a number promiscuously.

1874.  Pusey, Lent. Serm., 8. We take refuge in the thought, that these were not sudden unprepared apostasies.