ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not balanced or equably poised: a. Of the mind, judgment, etc., or persons in respect of these.
1650. Bp. Hall, Cases Consc. (ed. 2), 388. Wherein yet I cannot much blame an unballanced judgement, while I find the Septuagint contrary to themselves.
1737. Pope, Hor. Epist., I. vi. 25. Thus good or bad, to one extreme betray Th’ unbalanc’d Mind, and snatch the Man away.
1882. J. Parker, Apost. Life, I. 62. We know what he has been up to this time, ardent, impulsive, unbalanced, enthusiastic, cowardly.
1883. Elizabeth E. Flagg, Holden with Cords, xxxi. 288. He had really hung himself in a moment when remorse and fear of punishment so acted on a mind unbalanced by drink as to drive him to self-destruction.
1886. A. Weir, Hist. Basis Mod. Europe (1889), 111. Interference with the old order was so far-reaching, that the minds of all were quite unbalanced.
b. Of material things.
1732. Pope, Ess. Man, I. 251. Let Earth unbalanc’d from her orbit fly.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 40. No needless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanc’d weight.
1835. Court Mag., VI. 192/1. I was several times unbalanced, and on the very point of being hurled backward into the gulf.
1901. Feilden’s Mag., IV. 442/2. A running test of 16 hrs. with an average unbalanced load of 3,000 lbs.
c. fig. or transf. in various senses.
1712. Blackmore, Creation, III. 487. Then would unbalanc’d heat licentious reign.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. cxxxii. Thou, who never yet of human wrong Left the unbalanced scale.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., II. ii. § 9. The variegated aspects of the fields and gardens … have more beauty than the unbalanced verdure of the leaf.
1879. R. K. Douglas, Confucianism, iii. 91. He hated those who possess valour unbalanced by the observance of propriety.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 333. Deviation takes place in the opposite direction through the unbalanced action of the healthy muscles on the unparalysed side.
2. Of an account: (see BALANCE v. 14).
1828–32. Webster, Unbalanced,… not brought to an equality of debt and credit.
1902. Daily Chron., 25 Nov., 6/2. Complicated, confused, and unbalanced accounts.
