1. With dress or part of dress unfastened or loosened.
c. 1510. Barclay, Mirr. Gd. Manners (1570), E v. Their false heare inuolued, in nettes intricate, Their brestes vnbraced, their smerking paynted chin.
c. 1529. Skelton, E. Rummyng, 134. Some wenches come vnlased, Some huswyues come vnbrased.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 308. Women,… with their haire hanging loose about their eares, vngirt, vnlaced, and vnbraced.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. i. 78. Lord Hamlet with his doublet all vnbrac’d, No hat vpon his head.
1622. Fletcher, Sea-Voy., II. i. Methought a sweet young man … Stole slylie to my Cabin all unbrac’d.
1821. Scott, Kenilw., xiv. He found Lord Sussex dressed, but unbraced and lying on his couch.
1875. Whyte-Melville, Katerfelto, xiii. 120. Presently steals in a slipshod drawer, unbraced, uncombed, unwashed.
2. Of a drum: Not made tight or tense; released from tension.
1625. B. Jonson, Staple of N., Induct. He doth sit like an vnbrac’d Drum with one of his heads beaten out.
1669. Dryden, Tyrannic Love, I. i. Like the hoarse murmurs of a trumpet’s sound, And drums unbraced.
1703. Prior, Advice to Painter, 43. Near this, erected on a Drum unbrac’d, Let Heaven’s and James’s Enemy be plac’d.
1713. Mrs. Centlivre, Wonder, II. i. Poor Gentleman, he is as melancholy as an unbraced drum.
3. Loosened, relaxed. Also fig.
1621. Quarles, Argalus & P. (1678), 55. The little winged god with arm unbrac’d, And Bow unbent.
1760. Cautions & Adv. Officers of Army, 98. Little Good can be expected from him whose … unbraced Nerves … denote him fitter for his Grave … than for his Duty.
1776. Paine, Com. Sense (1791), 73. The property of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things.
4. Not braced or strengthened (by something).
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 216. Their sensibilities unbraced by the co-operation of fixed principles.
1883. H. Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. W. (1884), 354. His character untouched, his will unbraced.
