[UN-1 12.]
† 1. Strangeness. Obs.
c. 1230. Hali Meid., 13. I þis world þat is icleopet lond of unlicnesse.
a. 1380. St. Augustin, 224, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1878), 65/2. I fond fro þe þat fer I was, As in a kyngdam of vnlikenes.
2. The quality of being unlike; want of likeness or resemblance; dissimilarity.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 227. For noo drede licknesse of breþeren causiþ love among hem, and unliknesse is cause of discord.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., II. xii. (1495), c j/1. No violence of tyrannye bendyth theym to oppresse … the nether angellis. Therfore Denys sayth that they vse theyr lordshypp wyth vnlyknesse of tyrannye.
1533. More, Debell. Salem, Wks. 998/2. The causes that he laieth of dyssimilitude & vnlikenes, be twene the witnesses.
1548. Udall, Erasmus Par. Matt. v. 37. The unlikenes of manners declareth and argueth a bastarde.
1634. Canne, Necess. Separ. (1849), 89. Mark … what they speak here, touching their likeness and unlikeness with the papists.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., 9. Where the different sexe in most resembling unlikenes, and most unlike resemblance cannot but please best.
1709. Brit. Apollo, II. Supernum. No. 1. 2/1. We meet with some Characters of Unlikeness in this Similitude.
1772. Wesley, Jrnl., 11 Feb. (1827), III. 440. For … unlikeness to all the world beside,… the writer is without a rival!
1846. Trench, Mirac., xxv. (1862), 359. There are … points of unlikeness in the two miracles.
1853. Kingsley, Hypatia, xxi. It was … strange in its utter unlikeness to any teaching … which he had ever heard before.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., ix. 173. We know of no other way in which this likeness in unlikeness can be brought about.
b. With a and pl. An instance of dissimilarity or want of resemblance.
1662. South, Serm. (1679), 116. As great an unlikeness, as between St. Pauls a Cathedral, and St. Pauls a Stable.
1667. Phil. Trans., II. 611. These two unlikenesses I mention together.
1718. Freethinker, No. 155 (1733), 240. Such Unlikenesses as, by their Subtility, escape the Observation of Judgments less acute.
1746. W. Horsley, Fool (1748), I. 33. They are the Beau and the Belle; and, if I may be understood in thus speaking, are a similar Unlikeness.
1828. Southey, Epist. to A. Cunningham, 370. I recognise all these unlikenesses, Spurious abominations though they be.
1879. Sir G. Campbell, Black & White, 22. The likenesses are much more numerous and much more prominent than the unlikenesses.
3. A bad or poor likeness.
1729. T. Cooke, Tales, &c., 127. His ample Shield … On which th’ Unlikeness of the Greek appears.
1843. Longf., in Life (1891), II. 4. In the next number is an un-likeness of me,… in a morning-gown.
