a. [UN-1 7.] Not wet or moistened.
1433. Rolls of Parlt., IV. 451. Clothes … holdyng xiiii yerdes in lenght, and yeerde brode unwette; or elles xii yerdes wette.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., XII. 463. Cedur vnwet wol dure.
1585. Jas. VI., Ess. Poesie (Arb.), 27. I no wais can, vnwet my cheekes, beholde My sisters made … macquerels olde.
1594. Kyd, Cornelia, II. 234. When sand within a Whirl-poole lyes vnwet.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., X. (1626), 212. Their feet, vnwet, the sea might well haue borne.
1683. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., Printing, xxiv. ¶ 9. The un-wet upper part of … the Quire.
c. 1746. Collins, Ode Liberty, 69. He pass’d with unwet feet thro’ all our land.
1789. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 157. [To] bathe unwet their oily forms, and dwell With feet repulsive on the dimpling well.
1815. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xiii. (1816), I. 425. Their bodies being kept unwet by a coating of air.
1840. N. Hawthorne, Biogr. Sk. (1879), 178. It was like Gideon’s fleece, unwet with dew.
1891. Atkinson, Last of Giant-killers, 234. Emerging from it unwet as well as unharmed.
b. Of the eye: Not suffused with tears; tearless.
1601–3. Daniel, Certaine Epistles, 58. He lookes thereon As from the shore of peace with vnwet eie.
1700. Dryden, Sigism. & Guisc., 673. I meant to meet My Fate with … Eyes unwet.
a. 1743. Ld. Hervey, Epist., i. 82. Thy breast unruffled, and unwet thy eye.
1823. S. Rogers, Italy, Brides Venice, 135. Eyes not unwet … with grateful tears.
1845. Jerrold, St. Giles, v. (1851), 43. The woman, lifting her apron to her unwet eye.
