ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Of persons: Not married; unwedded.
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 737. Þe gode cordeile vnmaried was so.
c. 1400. Maundev. (1839), xix. 209. Wommen that ben unmaryed, thei han Tokenes on hire Hedes.
a. 1450. Lovelich, Grail, lv. 50. Wedded weren … Alle his bretheryn except on … that tho was vn-maryed.
1491. Act 7 Hen. VII., c. 20 § 6. If … Elizabeth dye unmaryed.
a. 1540. Barnes, Wks. (1573), 364/2. This thing dyd Paphnutius, though that hee hym selfe was vnmaryed.
1591. Knaresb. Wills (Surtees), I. 187. All my children bothe maryed and unmaried.
1607–12. Bacon, Ess., Marriage & Single Life (Arb.), 266. Vnmarryed Men are best Frendes.
1653. H. Cogan, Diod. Sic., IV. xxii. 152. He lived all his life time unmarried.
1728. Young, Love Fame, VI. 79. Unmarry’d Abra puts on formal airs.
1779. Mirror, No. 12. The two eldest of my unmarried daughters.
1834. Wellington, Lett. to Miss J., 24 Oct. The Duke is not in the habit of visiting young unmarried ladies.
1875. Ruskin, Fors Clav., V. lvi. 235. Every unmarried woman should have enough left her by her father to keep herself, and a pet dog.
transf. 1611. Shaks., Wint. T., IV. iv. 123. Pale Prime-roses, That dye vnmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phœbus in his strength.
1771. Encycl. Brit., I. 651/2. [The insect] flies from flower to flower till it arrives at the unmarried female.
b. absol. and as sb.
1557. N. T. (Geneva), 1 Cor. vii. 8. I say vnto the vnmaried, and widowes, it is good [etc.].
1619. Fletcher, Knt. Malta, V. i. Husband, Wife, There is some holy mystery in those names That sure the unmarried cannot understand.
1728. Eliza Heywood, trans. Mme. de Gomez’s Belle A. (1732), II. 147. Neither did the Night want its Charms both to the married and the unmarried.
1819. Metropolis, I. 71. We had a very bad turn out of British females, mostly dowagers and elderly unmarrieds.
1871. A. Meadows, Man. Midwifery (ed. 2), II. 59. In the case of the unmarried, he may … cast a slur upon a spotless character.
2. Lived free from marriage.
1648. Hexham, II. Een eeloosen Staet, an Unmarried State.
1747. Francis, trans. Horace, Epist., I. i. 125. How happy then is an unmarried Life!
1755. Johnson, Celibacy, single life; unmarried state.
