1. Lack of conformity (to something).
a. 1600. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., VII. xxiii. § 11. So odiously to be upbraided with unconformity unto the pattern of our Lord and Saviour’s estate.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1717). III. 435. The Moral Goodness or Evil of men’s Actions, which consist in their Conformity, or Unconformity to Right Reason.
1728. R. Morris, Ess. Anc. Archit., 69. In a direct Unconformity to the Rules.
1781. M. Madan, Thelyphthora, III. Pref. p. vii. He … has been at the pains to shew its unconformity to the Divine system, in the former parts of this work.
† 2. = NONCONFORMITY. Obs.
1635. Bp. of Peterborough, in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), I. 275. No man’s learning and piety shall excuse, with me, his unconformity.
1657. J. Sergeant, Schism Dispach’t, 580. To wit, distractions, dissentions, Unconformity, with a perpetually-fleeting Changeablenes of their tenet.
a. 1677. Manton, Serm. John xvii. 11, Wks. 1872, X. 330. Every modest dissent and unconformity is branded with the name of schism.
3. Geol. The fact of being unconformable or unconformed; difference of plane.
1829. J. Phillips, Geol. Yorks., I. 125. Proving the great unconformity of strata beneath the Yorkshire wolds.
1880. Haughton, Phys. Geogr., iii. 81. The general unconformity of the Permian and Triassic rocks.
b. With a and pl. An instance of this.
1863. J. G. Murphy, Com., Gen. i. 12–13. The stratifications of the earth’s crust with all their slips, elevations, depressions, unconformities.
1895. J. W. Powell, in Nat. Geog. Monogr., I. i. 18. Ore deposits are often found in unconformities.
