Unfed

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8 b. Cf. MDu. ongevoedet, -voet, Du. -voed unfed, unnourished; ON. and Icel. ú-, ófœddr (Sw. ofödd, Da. ufødt) unborn.]

  1.  Not supplied or nourished with food.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 12925. Iesus … fasted fourti dais vn-fedd. Ibid., 19650. Thre dais liued he þar vnfedd.

1513.  Douglas, Æneid, IX. vi. 71. The empty lioun, lang onfed,… Trubland the fald full of sylly schep.

1579.  Spenser, Sheph. Cal., May, 44. Shepeheards … That playen, while their flockes be vnfedde.

1641.  Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 123. Carre-swannes, that are unfedde, are usually at 2s. 6d. a peece.

1687.  Dryden, Hind & P., III. 195. Some sons of mine … Have sharply tax’d your converts, who unfed Have follow’d you for miracles of bread.

1737.  Gentl. Mag., VII. 570/1. I wonder’d, why his oxen stray’d, His sheep and heifers pine’d unfed.

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlvii. (1856), 442. Now the half-tutored, unfed Esquimaux dog would eat a goat, bones, skin, and for aught I know, horns.

1868.  Morris, Earthly Par. (1870), I. II. 565. Upon his perch the falcon sat Unfed.

  transf.  1890.  ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xxvii. The diet … became wellnigh intolerable: the flaccid unfed meat,… the milkless tea [etc.].

  2.  fig. Not supplied with necessary material, support, etc.

a. 1625.  Fletcher & Shirley, Lover’s Progr., IV. i. She that is forfeited to lust must dye, That humour being unfed.

1664.  Dryden & Howard, Indian Queen, IV. ii. I shou’d … like an unfed stream run on and dye.

1697.  Dryden, Æneis, XI. 101. A lovely Flow’r, New cropt by Virgin Hands,… Unfaded yet, but yet unfed below.

1816.  Byron, Ch. Har., III. xliv. Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering.

1883.  Jrnl. Educ., XVIII. 148. A church unfed from the public table.