1. Not conscious or knowing within oneself; unaware, regardless, heedless.
1712. Blackmore, Creation, VI. 646. Unconscious we these motions never heed, Whether they err, or by just laws proceed.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xiii. As he stood … surveying his (of course unconscious) clerk, from head to foot.
1889. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., II. 202. I mean the unconscious model, i.e., one taken unawares with a detective camera.
b. Const. of, that, etc.
1712. Blackmore, Creation, VII. 632. Through every dark recess [they] pursue their flight, Unconscious of the road.
1789. Burns, Kirk’s Alarm, vii. Are ye huirdin’ the penny, Unconscious what evils await?
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 172. Never having been disturbed, these animals were unconscious of danger.
1841. Carlyle, Heroes, i. (1904), 33. Silent, with closed lips, as I fancy them, unconscious that they were specially brave.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea, I. 158. All this time he was unconscious of exercising any ascendancy.
2. Not characterized by, or endowed with, the faculty or presence of consciousness.
1712. Blackmore, Creation, III. 266. Unconscious causes only still impart Their utmost skill, their utmost power exert.
1744. Akenside, Pleas. Imag., I. 527. For what are all The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears, Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts?
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., iv. § 1. 55. Can any distinction be assigned … between the producing watch, and the producing plant? both passive, unconscious substances.
1850. W. James, Princ. Psych., I. 199. Sleep, fainting, coma, epilepsy, and other ‘unconscious’ conditions.
absol. 1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr., II. xv. The Unconscious is the alone Complete.
1876. Westm. Review, XLIX. 512. Those who are acquainted with the ‘pessimist’ conclusions of the ‘philosophy of the Unconscious.’
1884. Coupland (title), Philosophy of the Unconscious, by Eduard von Hartmann.
b. Temporarily devoid of consciousness.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Elsie Venner, xxvi. (1861), 302. A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on the head. He becomes unconscious.
1890. Retrospect Med., CII. 118. The patient had a temperature of 105·8° for thirty-six hours, and was unconscious for twenty-four hours.
3. Not realized or known as existing in oneself.
1800. Coleridge, Christabel, II. xxvii. Still picturing that look askance With forced unconscious sympathy Full before her father’s view.
1870. L’Estrange, Miss Mitford, I. vi. 166. And is not the sunny felicity of childhood in itself unconscious virtue?
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer (1891), 150. [She] rode … extremely well, and with an unconscious grace.
absol. 1817. Coleridge, Biogr. Lit., Poesy or Art. In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the external with the internal; the conscious is so impressed on the unconscious as to appear in it.
4. Not attended by, or present to, consciousness; performed, employed, etc., without conscious action.
Unconscious cerebration: see CEREBRATION.
1820. Lamb, Elia, I. Oxford in Vacation. He has long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous assembly of attorneys, attorneys’ clerks [etc.].
1836. C. Wordsworth, Athens, xxiii. (1855), 156. It may be considered as an unconscious emblem of the consecration of earthly history and glory and majesty to the Cross.
1866. J. Martineau, Ess., I. 133. It is wrong to punish an unconscious act.
1878. S. Butler, Life & Habit, ii. 26. In like manner, the most perfect humour and irony is generally quite unconscious.
