[UN-1 8 b.]
1. Not read; unperused.
1456. Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 63. [He] held the letter in his hand unred.
a. 1553. Udall, Roister D., III. ii. Ye a woman? and your letter so long vnredde.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., IV. xii. 2. Then blame me not, if I haue err’d in count Of Gods, of Nymphs, of riuers yet vnred.
1693. Dryden’s Juvenal, VII. (1697), 173. His Muse had starv’d, had not a Piece unread, And by a Player bought, supply’d her Bread.
1728. Pope, Dunciad, III. 103. Her grey-hair’d Synods damning books unread.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, II. 389. She therefore determined that … she would … deliver the unread letter to Sir Hugh.
1838. Lytton, Leila, I. ii. An open manuscript … lay unread before the Moor.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xxvii. 469. He burnt unread the correspondence of Pompey and Scipio.
2. Not instructed by reading. Also absol.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 24. The Wise and Foole, the Artist and vn-read,… seeme all affin’d, and kin.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., III. 409. And last, uncertain whose the narrower span, The clown unread, and half-read gentleman.
a. 1743. Savage, To John Powell, 47. To unread Squires, illiterately gay; Among the learn’d, as learned full as they.
1811. Byron, Hints fr. Hor., 237. Unread,… Fool’d, pillag’d, dunn’d, he wastes his term away.
1865. St. James’s Mag., Oct., 354. The Great Unread.
1884. Graphic, 4 Oct., 358/1. The Khedive himself is far from unlearned and unread.
b. Const. in (a matter or subject).
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., IX. lii. 234. Such as be vnreade In that sweete Promise.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 185. Not being wholly unread in the authors.
1816. Coleridge, Lay Serm., 314. A fact that none but the unread in history will deny.
1865. Meredith, R. Fleming, viii. Algernon was unread in the hearts of women.
