[UN-1 10, 5 d.]
1. Not deserving (something good); lacking desert or merit; unworthy. Also const. of.
1549. Coverdale, etc., Erasm. Par. Jas. ii. 30 b. He yt hath … preferred the vndeseruing rich man before the deseruing pore man.
1591. Shaks., Two Gent., III. i. 7. When I call to minde your gracious fauours Done to me (vndeseruing as I am).
1647. Cowley, Mistr., Discovery, iv. One would give with lesser grief, To an undeserving Beggar than a Thief.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XV. 335. Mingling with the suitors’ haughty train, Not undeserving, [I may] some support obtain.
1748. G. White, Serm. (MS). So should we love others, though undeserving of our Love.
1796–7. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., xlix. Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we have thought him.
1821. Shelley, Adonais, xxiv. Whose sacred blood … Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.
1847. Harris, Life Ld. Hardwicke, I. 8. Such influences … certainly were not … undeserving of attention.
absol. 1713. Guardian, No. 4, ¶ 1. Fame … promiscuously bestowed on the Meritorious and Undeserving.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, II. v. We are liable … to confer our choicest favours often on the undeserving.
b. With direct object.
1603. Daniel, Panegyric Congratulatory, xxv. There is no accesse By grosse corruption, bribes cannot effect For th’ vndeseruing any offices.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, V. 515. [It] makes me … feel undeserving my own hopes!
1860. Mrs. Clive, Why Paul Ferroll killed his Wife, xii. Creatures undeserving respect, incapable of goodness.
2. Not deserving (harsh treatment, etc.); guiltless, innocent. Also with direct object.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. x. I was caried … to doo my best to destroy this sonne … undeserving destruction.
1598. R. Bernard, trans. Terence, Phormio, I. v. I hard you long since accuse vs all vndeseruing.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, VIII. 763. If your hard decrees … Have doomed to death his undeserving head.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, III. 59. Unused to, because undeserving control. Ibid., 404. Thou must linger on, then, in captivity, thou poor little undeserving sufferer!
1865. Conington, trans. Horace, Odes, I. xvii. (ed. 3), 21. Lest Cyrus … His passion on your chaplet wreak, Or spoil your undeserving dress.
† 3. Undeserved, unmerited. Obs.–1
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 366. My Ladie … In curtesie giues vndeseruing praise.
