ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
† 1. Not cultivated by study. Obs.
c. 1450. Burgh, Secrees, 1516. These Sevene Sustryn … The nyne musys blame shal in maneere, That they vnlabouryd stant on my partye.
2. Of land: Unworked, untilled, uncultivated.
1473. Reg. Cupar Abbey, I. 201. Gif thar be ony … that levis ony his land … onlaboryt.
a. 1513. Fabyan, Chron., VII. ccxix. 241. He destroyed the lande … in suche wyse, that .ix. yeres after … the lande laye vnlabored and vntylled.
1586. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., I. 166. Good ground becommeth unfruitfull,… the more it is left unlaboured.
1684. T. Burnet, Theory Earth, I. 243. Seeing it … had a soil so fruitful, a new unlabour’d soil.
1708. J. Philips, Cyder, I. 115. Let thy Ground Not lye unlabour’d.
1804. Europ. Mag., XLV. 60/2. Gallia mourns … Unpeopled cities, and unlabour’d plains.
3. Not obtained or brought about by labor; esp. attained or accomplished in an easy or natural manner; spontaneous.
1631. Sir W. Cornwallis, Disc. Seneca, Ll 6 b. When goodnes was vnlabored excellency.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Past., IV. 33. Unlabour’d Harvests shall the Fields adorn.
1797. Monthly Mag., III. 538. Of the translation itself we shall only observe, that it is natural and unlaboured.
1853. Ruskin, Stones Ven., II. viii. 369. Their perfect, pure, unlaboured naturalism.
1882. Homiletic Monthly, July, 599. Such inspirational and unlabored success was built on a firm basis of general study.
† 4. Left unapproached or uninfluenced. Obs.–1
1644. Laud, Wks. (1854), IV. 147. The judge at Chester (altogether unknown to me and unlaboured by me) did say [etc.].
5. Not subjected to, free from, labor.
1598. Grenewey, Tacitus, Descr. Germanie, ii. 261. Horses, which are … maintained in those woods…, white, vnbacked, or vnlaboured.
1765. Beattie, Judgm. Paris, 514. The bower of bliss … be thine, Unlabour’d ease, and leisure’s careless dream.
