a. (UN-1 7.)
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. i. § 2. The matters which we handle seeme by reason of newnesse … darke, intricate, and vnfamiliar.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Oberons Feast, 4. Because thou prizest things that are Curious, and unfamiliar.
c. 1698. Locke, Cond. Underst., § 32 (1754), 127. Abstruse and unfamiliar ideas which the mind is not yet throughly accustomed to.
1753. Warton, Obs. Spenser’s F. Q., 141. It must be confest that his uncouth or rather unfamiliar language has deterr’d many from perusing him.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, III. vi. His face did not seem unfamiliar to me.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xlix. Looking without interest or recognition at the unfamiliar walls around her.
1891. Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, xli. When Onesimus recovered full consciousness he did not recognise his unfamiliar surroundings.
Hence Unfamiliarness.
1881. Times, 17 May, 4/6. A multitude of little changes of this kind … arouse a general sense of unfamiliarness.
