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  1.  Having no (known or acknowledged) father; illegitimate.

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1597.  Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., V. iv. 122. The people feare me: for they doe obserue Vnfather’d Heires, and loathly Births of Nature.

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1726.  Pope, Odyss., XIX. 187. Thy port asserts thee of distinguish’d race; No poor unfather’d product of disgrace.

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1856.  Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, VII. 327. Marian’s babe, her poor unfathered child.

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1874.  Trollope, Lady Anna, i. She would be a penniless unmarried female with a daughter, her child would be unfathered and base.

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  2.  Unfatherly. rare–1.

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1778.  Langhorne, Owen of Carron, XVIII. 2. And Moray, with unfather’d Eyes,… Attends his human Sacrifice, Without the Grecian Painter’s Veil.

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  3.  Of obscure origin; unauthenticated.

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1830.  De Quincey, Bentley, Wks. 1863, VI. 55. Unfathered rumours, rumours unacknowledged and untraceable.

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1888.  Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. ci. 419. Men are … therefore ready to trust their own fancies or some unfathered tale.

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