Unsworn

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8 b. Cf. MHG. ungesworn, MSw. os(v)orin, Sw. osvuren, MDa. us(v)oren, not having sworn.]

  1.  Of persons: Not subjected to, or bound by, an oath.

1529.  More, Dialoge, Wks. 133/2. For none of them can tel what was said to an other, & yet they be vnsworne also. Ibid. (1533), Debell. Salem, Wks. 973/1. Yet are there many that dare secretely detecte,… and wyll not vncalled and vnsworen, tel no tale at all.

1581.  Lambarde, Eiren., I. x. (1588), 58. Albeit that it be the first Oath that I find to have bene ministred to Iustices of the Peace, yet I thinke they were neither unsworne before, nor at any time after.

1602.  Segar, Hon. Mil. & Civ., I. v. 7. That no Citizen unsworne, should remaine out of Italie more then three yeares.

1678.  Dryden, All for Love, V. i. Is there one God unsworn to my Destruction?

1701.  Prideaux, Direct. Ch.-wardens, 11. Whatever they do…, while unsworn, is all to their own wrong.

1710.  J. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. II. xv. 128. There are in this Court Three Officers unsworn.

1852.  Fraser’s Mag., March, 246/1. He may consequently be supposed to use the language of the law, ‘to stand unindifferent as he stands unsworn.’

1884.  Church, Bacon, iii. 75. An unsworn and unpaid member of the Learned Counsel.

  2.  Not confirmed by, or sworn as, an oath.

a. 1623.  Swinburne, Spousals (1686), 11. Of Spousals, some be sworn and some unsworn; that is to say, some Spousals be confirmed by an Oath and some contracted without an Oath.

a. 1800.  Cowper, Odyssey (ed. 2), X. 419. When, therefore, nought of all her solemn oath Unsworn remain’d, I climb’d her stately bed.

1843.  Act 6–7 Vict., c. 22 (title), The Admission, in certain Cases, of unsworn Testimony in Civil and Criminal Proceedings.

1887.  Pall Mall G., 9 July, 9/2. Granting summonses … on unsworn information.