ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. fig. Of statements, etc.: Not embellished or rendered specious; plain, direct.
1604. Shaks., Oth., I. iii. 90. I will a round vn-varnish’d Tale deliuer, Of my whole course of Loue.
1780. Burke, Sp. at Bristol, Wks. III. 367. This is a true, unvarnished, undisguised state of the affair.
1790. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Adv. Future Laureat, II. i. Were I monarch of this mighty isle! By verse unvarnish’d should my merits smile.
1806. Surr, Winter in Lond., II. 238. State to this company, without exaggeration, and without palliation, your own unvarnished story!
1883. Miss M. Betham-Edwards, Disarmed, xxxi. Valerian … had set out with the intention of adhering to the unvarnished truth, but finally ended in romancing.
b. Of persons, etc.: Unsophisticated, unpolished; plain and simple.
1827. Pollok, Course T., VIII. 107. A congregation … of unappendaged and unvarnished men; Of plain, unceremonious human beings.
1831. [Mary Berry], Soc. Life Eng. & France, 192. Strong appeals to all the unvarnished feelings of human nature.
1864. Mrs. H. Wood, Verner’s Pride, xli. Lady Verner liked Lord Garle … ten times better than she liked unvarnished Jan.
2. Not covered with, or as with, varnish.
1758. Reid, trans. Macquer’s Chym., I. 372. Into an unvarnished earthen dish put the quantity of Tin you intend to calcine.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 174. The deep dark green of whose unvarnish’d leaf … illumines more The bright profusion of her scatter’d stars.
1875. Sir T. Seaton, Fret-Cutting, 33. The mortification of ultimately finding some place left unvarnished or unfinished.
Hence Unvarnishedly adv.
1824. Hogg, Tales & Sk., V. 68. I had kept by the naked truth too unvarnishedly.
