Unmanured

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8.]

  † 1.  Of land: Uncultivated, untilled. Obs.

  In frequent use from c. 1590 to c. 1640.

1570.  Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), I. 222/2. The prouince lay waste and vnmanured.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, 257. All rough and unmanured places.

1632.  W. Lithgow, Trav., III. 85. I could not find a foote of ground vnmanured.

c. 1694.  Dryden, Lett. to J. Dennis, ¶ 4. It looks like a vast tract of land newly discover’d: the soil is wonderfully fruitful, but unmanur’d.

1721.  Ramsay, Prospect of Plenty, 222. To let braid tracts of land lie unmanur’d.

  b.  fig. or in fig. contexts.

1594.  Selimus, 381. It argueth an unmanured wit.

a. 1631.  Donne, Heroical Epist., 36. Thy body is a naturall Paradise, In whose selfe, unmanur’d, all pleasure lies.

1663.  Cowley, On Orinda’s Poems, ii. ’Twere shame … if in thee A Spirit so rich … Should unmanur’d, or barren lye.

1700.  T. Brown, Amusem. Ser. & Com., 69. Gallantry … which was formerly so well Cultivated,… is at present Desolate, Unmanur’d and Abandoned!

  2.  Not supplied with manure.

[1828–32.  Webster.]

1849.  Johnston, Exp. Agric., 105. The unmanured [crop] might have ripened its seed while the manured was still growing.

1868.  Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 419. The average product of unmanured American soil.