[UN-1 12.]
1. Want of fitness (in various senses).
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, III. xxiv. Having impatiently borne the delay of the nights unfitnesse, this morning he gat up.
1624. in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. I. III. 173. I represented to her the unfitnesse of the seventh article.
1643–5. Milton, Divorce, I. i. What greater … unfitnes of mind then that which hinders ever the solace … of the married couple.
1736. Butler, Anal., I. iii. 69. A Proof from Fact … which is deduced from … the Fitness and Unfitness of Actions.
1750. trans. Leonardus’ Mirr. Stones, 31. A bad commixture … sometimes happens … from the unfitness of the place, which gives a diversity to stones.
1824. Southey, Sir T. More (1831), II. 94. There is a natural unfitness in distant dominion.
1863. Cox, Instit., III. iii. 636. The rule … has no respect to the fitness or unfitness of the persons.
b. Const. for, or to with inf.
1619. in Foster, Eng. Factories India (1906), I. 70. The unfitnesse of those comodityes for the Dabulleers.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, III. § 22. 223. Mans unworthinesse and unfitnesse to appeare in Gods sight.
1750. Secker, Eight Charges (1771), 124. I have too much Cause, in every Thing, to be sensible of my own Unfitness to direct.
1811. Regul. & Orders Army, 283. The Causes of their unfitness for further Military Service.
1885. Manch. Exam., 18 March, 5/2. There was … evidence of his unfitness to take care of himself.
2. With pl. An instance of lack of fitness.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., Wks. 1851, IV. 193. Law … cannot make equal those inequalities, it cannot make fit those unfitnesses.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 32. If they could be brought in without other unfitnesses.
