1. Morally impure.
a. 1375. Lay Folks Mass Bk., App. iv. 226. Of sunnes we beþ vnpure.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. I. 116 (Ilchester MS.). For þay were prestes vnpure.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, III. xxxvi. 106. Hov vnpure all oure werkes are we weyle not.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys, 258 b. Nought chaste thou techyst, but thynge vnpure and vyle.
1550. Bale, Eng. Votaries, II. F iij. Thus was the churche fylled wyth vnpure ministers.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, V. 237. I hope such vnpure minds will amend their impure errours.
1624. Donne, Devot., 210. Or so vnpure constitutions, as that we can present no obiect but sin.
1742. in Wesley, Jrnl. (1749), 41. Dost thou believe, thy heart must be thus unpure?
2. Not physically pure or clean.
a. 1500. Ratis Raving, I. 156. Quhilk is stinkand aire vnpure.
1548. Act 2 & 3 Edw. VI., c. 10 § 1. Malte unpure and unseasonable.
1576. Newton, Lemnie’s Complex., 9 b. When the humours be not sufficiently … concocted and attenuate, vnpure Spirites proceede out of them.
1651. Wittie, Primrose’s Pop. Err., IV. iii. 213. The mixture of pure, and unpure, that is to say, of different parts in … the same mixt body.
3. Not genuine or true.
1590. Burrough, Meth. Physick, 246. If one feuer do exceede the other, then it is called an vnpure hemitrice.
Hence † Unpurely adv., -ness. Obs.
1550. Bale, Eng. Votaries, II. A ij b. They … teache the veryte of God *vnpurely.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke, ii. 20 b. For what point of *vnpurenes coulde suche a woman haue in bearyng childe, as … had conceiued by the onely power and vertue of God.
1573. T. Cartwright, Replye to Answ. Whitgift, 13. Christe … shall couer all oure vnpurenesse and not impute it into vs.
