Unchristened

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8. Cf. MSw. okristnadher, and UNKIRSENED ppl. a.]

  1.  Not made Christian; not converted to Christianity, unbaptized.

c. 1330.  R. Brunne, Chron. Wace (Rolls), 11974. Me þynkeþ hit were but tynt, þe stounde, To write þe names of so fele hounde Þat were vncristned in þys mounde.

c. 1350.  Lybeaus Disc., 1358. What wendest thou, fendes fere? Uncrystenede that were Tyll y saw the wyth syght.

c. 1400.  Apol. Loll., 2. Corneli centurio, ȝet vncristund, is clensid wiþ þe Hooli Goost.

c. 1440.  Alph. Tales, 219. Þai & all þer howsold become crestend, þat war haythen befor and vncristend.

1470–85.  Malory, Arthur, IX. xxvii. 381. Nay said syre Persydes, hit is syr Palomydes, that is yet vncrystened.

a. 1548.  Hall, Chron., Hen. VII., 23 b. The Moores or Mawritane nacion, beyng infideles and vnchristened people.

1570–6.  Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 211. A Pagan (or unchristened) King of Northumberland, had married a Christian woman.

1649.  Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., III. xvii. 74. The Holy-land is now in the dominion of unchristened Saracens.

1659.  Baxter, Key Cath., II. iii. 429. Else most of the Christians of the world at this day are Apostates and unchristened.

1825.  Scott, Talism., xxv. Edith Plantagenet scorns the homage of an unchristened Pagan.

1868.  J. H. Newman, Verses Var. Occas., 114. Why should we fear, the Son now lacks His place Where roams unchristened man?

1881.  Athenæum, 24 Sept., 393/2. A survival of the feasts of our unchristened forefathers.

  transf.  1805.  Scott, Last Minstrel, III. ix. Those iron clasps … Would not yield to unchristen’d hand.

1899.  R. Bridges, Poet. Wks. (1912), 348. Thy soft unchristen’d smile, That shadows neither love nor guile.

  b.  spec. Of children. Also transf.

1725.  Ramsay, Gentle Sheph., II. ii. At midnight hours o’er the kirkyard she raves, And howks unchristen’d weans out of their graves.

1777.  Brand, Pop. Antiq., 74, note. Children dying unbaptized;… It is thought here very unlucky to go over their Graves. It is vulgarly called going over ‘unchristened Ground.’

1791.  Burns, Tam o’ Shanter, 132. Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiv. III. 462. Annihilation is the fate of the greater part of mankind, of heathens, of Mahometans, of unchristened babes.

  2.  Unnamed.

1832.  Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. V. (1863), 456. I do not mean, in this catalogue, to include the large proportion of bright, shallow trouting-streams, for the most part unchristened and unregistered.

1853.  E. K. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxiv. (1856), 194. A large cape and several smaller headlands were seen,… all on the western side. They remain unchristened.