Unamiable

a. [UN-¹ 7 b and 5 b.] Not amiable, in senses of that adj.: a. Of things (chiefly abstract) or acts.

c. 1480.  Henryson, Fables, Trial of Fox, xx. My mycht is … Angrie, austerne, and als vnamiable To all that standis fray to myne estait.

1565.  Cooper, Thesaurus, Inamabilis,… vnamiable: without grace or pleasantnesse woorthie fauour.

1603.  Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 1140. If love be away,… the act thereof remaineth altogether not expetible, dishonourable, without grace and unamiable.

1708.  J. Phillips, Cyder, I. 563. Nor are the Hills unamiable, whose Tops To Heav’n aspire.

1796.  Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, V. 83. Extremes, nearly as pernicious, though not so unamiable as the vices.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iv. I. 500. Three poor labouring men, deeply imbued with this unamiable divinity, were arrested.

1884.  St. James’s Gaz., 9 Sept., 6/1. The Greenore steamer … surmounted the unamiable waves of the Channel.

  b.  Of persons.

1711.  Addison, Spect., No. 261, ¶ 4. True Love has ten thousand Griefs … that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits.

1778.  Miss Burney, Evelina, xl. The distaste I already felt for these unamiable sisters.

1832.  Lytton, Eugene A., i. 4 What in the world makes a man of just pride appear so unamiable as the sense of dependence?

1884.  Spectator, 4 Oct., 1325/1. There is no more unamiable character in the whole of history than Frederick William I.

  c.  Of conduct, disposition, etc.

1774.  Mrs. Delany, in Life & Corr. (1862), II. 65. His conduct had been unamiable and careless.

1779.  Mirror, No. 33. A tolerable person, and I think not an unamiable temper.

1818.  Scott, Hrt. Midl., xlv. This unamiable … disposition of mind broke forth in sundry unfounded criticisms.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iv. I. 450. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable.

1890.  Baker, Wild Beasts, I. 306. The difficulty was increased by the cheetah making unamiable faces as the man approached.

  Hence Unamiableness, Unamiably adv.

1611.  Florio, Inamabilità, *vnamiablenesse, vnlouingnesse.

1668.  Wilkins, Real Char., III. vii. § 6. 341. Passive, to be done, Unamiableness.

a. 1797.  H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. II. (1847), III. vi. 162. The unamiableness of the characters he blamed imprinted those dislikes.

1840.  L. Hunt, Leg. Florence, I. i. He does her the honour of making her … Grateful return for his unamiableness, Love without bounds, in short, for his self-love.

1874.  Ruskin, Val D’Arno, cxxxi. (1886), 63. Pacific Florence, in her pride of victory, was beginning to show unamiableness of temper.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., ix. II. 423. Their national antipathies were, indeed, in that age, unreasonably and *unamiably strong.