ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not improved by husbandry; untilled, uncultivated: a. Of ground.
1538. Elyot, Incultus, a place vnhusbanded or vntilled.
1601. R. Johnson, Kingd. & Commw. (1603), 184. No foot of land is left vnhusbanded.
1628. Robson, News fr. Aleppo, 13. The vnhusbanded plaines, for many miles together blame their stupidity.
1654. Earl Monm., trans. Bentivoglio’s Wars Flanders, 134. Other little islands … are almost nameless, as being almost unhusbanded.
1894. Pall Mall G., 1 Nov., 2/3. Dwellers for the more part in remote, unhusbanded districts.
b. Of plants or trees.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., II. 116. A desert producing here and there a few vnhusbanded Palmes.
1616. W. Browne, Brit. Past., II. v. 341. I have beheld A widow vine,… Unhusbanded, neglected, all forlorne.
1620. Brinsley, Virgil, 43/2. The great brambles vnhusbanded (or vntrimmed, or not cut) but wilde.
1888. Doughty, Arabia Deserta, II. 184. I went … to dig up off-sets of unhusbanded young palms.
2. Not provided with a husband.
[1775. Ash.]
1791. Southey, Eng. Ecl., Hannah, 19. She bore unhusbanded a mother’s pains.
1879. Meredith, Egoist, xxxii. He considered himself to have been too lenient to the wine of an unhusbanded hostess.
