[UN-1 8.]
† 1. Not ornamented or trimmed. Obs.
1488. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., I. 83. A belt of crammassy hernessit with gold and braid 1 … a belt of gold vnharnessit.
2. Not provided with or wearing armor.
a. 1513. Fabyan, Chron., VII. 308. Kynge Rycharde,… with a fewe accompanyed & vnharnaysed, shulde comme to ye Frenshe Kynges tent.
1562. Pilkington, Expos. Abdyas, 55. 300 naked men unharnessed,… vanquished them all.
1586. Hooker, Conq. Irel., I. xlii. 28/1, in Holinshed. As in combates in England, so they being vnharnessed, did fight with their swords or weapons in the open sight of the people.
1721. Ramsay, Poems, 397. Ungeard, naked, not clad, unharness’d.
3. Not fitted with, or put into, harness.
1608. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. Schisme, 298. Chariots, unfurnisht and unharnest.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, IX. 425. Unharnessed chariots stand along the shore.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, II. 950. Beside the chariots stood the unharness’d steeds Cropping the lotus.
b. Not adapted for industrial use.
1903. Kipling, 5 Nations, 57. Watching unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour.
