Unkempt

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8 b: cf. prec. and older Flem. ongekempt.]

  1.  Of hair, etc.: Uncombed.

1742.  Shenstone, Schoolmistr., ii. Oft-times [they] … For Hair unkempt … are sorely shent.

1825.  Ld. Cockburn, Mem. (1856), 268. The bur in the throat,… the unkempt locks.

1843.  Carlyle, Past & Pr., III. x. It is forever indispensable for a man to fight: now with Necessity,… tangled Forests, unkempt Cotton.

  b.  Having the hair uncombed or disheveled.

1748.  Thomson, Cast. Indol., I. lxi. Unkempt, and rough, of squalid face and mein.

1812.  Byron, Ch. Har., I. xvii. Though shent with Egypt’s plague, unkempt, unwashed.

1877.  Black, Green Past., xlv. Tall, uncouth, unkempt fellows … seated on a bench smoking.

  transf.  1864.  Miss Braddon, Doctor’s Wife, i. The horse had a rakish, unkempt look about the head and mane.

  c.  Neglected; not cared for; untrimmed; rough.

1867.  D. G. Mitchell, Rural Stud., 1. A wild, unkempt, slatternly farm.

1879.  Dixon, Windsor, II. xx. 207. Their filthy habits and unkempt attire.

  fig.  1861.  J. Brown, Horæ Subs., Ser. II. 370. In that formidable and unkempt nature … lay the delicacy … of a gentleman.

  † 2.  fig. Of language: Inelegant, unrefined; rude. (Cf. INCOMPT a., UNCOMBED ppl. a. 2.) Obs.

1579.  Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Nov., 51. To well I wote … howe my rymes bene rugged and vnkempt. Ibid. (1590), F. Q., III. x. 29. Thy offers base I greatly loth, And eke thy words vncourteous and vnkempt.

1606.  N. Baxter, Sidney’s Ourania, D 2. Our Spokes beene blunt,… Vnable in Mysteries to know the sooth; Vnkempt, vnpolished, ignorant, lewde.

  Hence Unkemptness.

1876.  World, V. 16. Untidyness and unkemptness [of a garden].

1900.  Scribner’s Mag., Sept., 297/2. The foul unkemptness of the natives.