ppl. a. and sb. [UN-1 8.]
A. adj. 1. Not decided; unsettled; uncertain.
1540. in Charters, etc., Edinb. (1871), 212. The pley beand … as yet ondecidit, na innovatioun suld be maid.
1588. Lambarde, Eiren., III. i. 330. I find it both doubted and undecided.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, I. xxvi. 89. Glory … forbids vs to leaue any thing vnresolued or vndecided.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., I. xv. 78. For else the question is undecided, and left to force.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 132. A Cast of scatter’d Dust will … undecided leave the Fortune of the Day.
1731. Hist. Litteraria, III. 762. Finding, that notwithstanding the great pains he had taken, many Controversies remained still undecided.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, II. vi. If any thing is yet undecided, it will not, perhaps, be amiss that I should be consulted.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 671. It appears to us that this point still remains in a very undecided state.
1853. Ruskin, Stones Ven. (1874), II. vi. § 91. 217. This is not an unimportant distinction, nor an undecided one.
b. Lacking in decision or definiteness.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, III. vii. To engage a certain rather than a doubtful and undecided support.
1849. J. F. W. Johnston, in Trans. N. Y. S. Agric. Soc., IX. 43–4. What I have said will not fail in being useful to scientific agriculture, if it convince a single undecided voter in this great commonwealth of the worth of those aids which science offers you, in developing the resources of the soil.
1864. Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 292. To have … an undecided opinion on the question of Eternal Punishment.
c. Coursing. Not decided between the competing dogs; indecisive.
1839. in Youatt, Dog (1845), 261. In running a match the judge may declare the course to be undecided.
1856. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, 206, etc.
2. Irresolute, hesitating.
1779. Mirror, No. 66. He knows … that the undecided mind, without choice or active sense of propriety, is equally accessible to the next [feelings] that occur.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, I. 240. So doubted he, and undecided yet Stood drawing forth his faulchion huge.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xi. 71. The man … stood beside the chasm manifestly undecided as to whether he should take the step.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 173. When action above all things is required he is undecided.
B. sb. Coursing. An indecisive course.
1876. Coursing Calendar, 5. Miss Steel and No More ran a short undecided. Ibid., 222. We did not make the anticipated headway, only getting thirty courses, including the two undecideds.
Hence Undecidedly adv.
[1847. Webster.]
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 19. They seem to move very awkwardly, slowly, and undecidedly.
1885. Sir J. F. Stephen, in Law Q. Rev., Jan., 8 Their language hovers undecidedly between two meanings.
