adv. Now arch. [UN-1 11. Cf. prec. and UNWITTINGLY adv.] Unknowingly; unconsciously; † without it being known.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 134. Furþe … withouten fole he passis his way, Vn-wetandly to any wee.
14[?]. Chaucer’s Pardoncer’s T., 24 (Corpus MS.). Loth vnkyndely lay by his doughtres tuo vnwetyngly, So drunke he was.
a. 1542. Wyatt, ‘And if,’ Wks. 1913, I. 176. To frame all wel, I ame content That it were done unwetingly.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. viii. 15. I … found them faring so, As by the way vnweetingly I strayd.
1671. Milton, Samson, 1680. They only set on sport and play Unweetingly importun’d Thir own destruction to come speedy upon them.
1792. D. Lloyd, Voy. Life, 30. Prone to the lap of lewd Licentiousness The high-flown rabble throngs unweetingly.
1802. J. Baillie, 1st Pt. Ethwald, IV. iv. Woggarwolfe … once before unweetingly has served us.
a. 1849. H. Coleridge, Ess. (1851), II. 157. Shakspeare … assumes the utmost pomp of diction on these occasions, complying, unweetingly, with Aristotle’s precepts.
