[UN-1 10.]
1. Not blushing or reddening.
1595. Daniel, Civ. Wars, II. lvi. People vntrue To God and man,… And with vnblushing faces formost thrust.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymnotheo, IX. That [Beauty] modest, pure, this full of Stain, Unblushing, vain.
a. 1757. T. Edwards, Sonn., xiv. 3. That bold bad man … pretending still With hard unblushing front the public good.
1773. Goldsm., Stoops to Conq., Epil. Th’ unblushing Barmaid at a country inn.
1815. W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania, 124. Bold and unblushing comes Theodore Hooke, For ever enroll’d in rank plagiary’s book.
1865. E. C. Clayton, Cruel Fortune, I. 207. The very next day, perhaps, she would utter a falsehood with the most unblushing face.
2. Immodest, shameless, unabashed.
1736. Thomson, Liberty, V. 180. The buzz Of masquerade unblushing.
1776. Mickle, Camoens’ Lusiad, Introd. 128. This last unblushing falsity, that Gama prays to Christ.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., ix. II. 415. He tried to show … that strenuous and unblushing servility, even when least successful, was a sure title to his favour.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), V. 14. In several passages the Athenian praises himself in the most unblushing manner.
Hence Unblushingly adv., Unblushingness.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., viii. I. 38. They … end with bankruptcy as naturally, as unreluctantly, and as *unblushingly, as if it had been the object of their pursuit.
1812. ‘Lucius,’ in Examiner, 5 Oct., 633/1. Though undenied, and even unblushingly acknowledged.
1894. Sir E. Sullivan, Woman, 26. They so unblushingly affect virtues that they have not got.
1891. Meredith, One of our Conq., xxxviii. The appalling theme … was taken for a proof of the girl’s *unblushingness.
