a. (UN-1 7 b.)
1828. Q. Rev., XXXVIII. 204. Another worse evil, the name of which, in his days, was not unpresentable, ‘in prose or rhyme.’
1857. J. G. Wood, Objects Sea Shore, 55. A pair of snowy white trowsers were covered with the sable fluid, and rendered entirely unpresentable.
1876. T. Hardy, Ethelberta, xlviii. She still felt so distressed and unpresentable that she resolved not to allow Lord Mountclere to see her.
Hence Unpresentability, -ableness.
1861. Rossetti, in Fraser’s Mag. July, 73. For years past it has … candidly admitted its own unpresentableness.
1882. ‘Sarah Tytler,’ Bride’s Pass, ii. His unpresentability when fresh from some of his functions.
1886. Ruskin, Præterita, I. x. 330. My own shyness and unpresentableness were farther stiffened … by a patriotic and Protestant conceit.
