[f. UNNATURAL a.]
1. Unnatural conduct or disposition.
1537. Cromwell, in Merriman, Life & Lett. (1902), II. 86. Promysing hymn … forgeuenes … of his most shamefull ingratitude, vnnaturalnes, conspiracie against his honour.
1550. W. Lynne, trans. Carion’s Cron., 36. Thys cruell dede declareth the vnnaturalnesse of the Barbarous nation.
1643. Trapp, Comm. Gen. ix. 25. Their parents also through their unnaturalness are compell’d to curse them.
1689. D. Granville, Lett. (Surtees No. 37), 97. I am not … guilty in the lestwise of … injustice and unnaturallness to my fellow-subjects.
1703. Quick, Dec. Wife’s Sister, 26. A Prodigy of Baseness, Unnaturalness and Ungratefulness.
1758. Jortin, Erasmus, I. 547. Burnet hath retracted his mistake that this Lord … sat in judgment upon his daughter, which would have impeached him of great unnaturalness.
2. Unnatural character.
1605. B. Jonson, Volpone, III. v. That the unnaturalness … of the act … would sure enrage him.
1633. T. James, Voy., 77. This vnnaturalnesse of the season did torment our men.
1664. Ingelo, Bentiv. & Ur., VI. 349. The Unnaturalness of such Disobedience will appear yet farther.
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, xliii. The unnaturalness of her crime.
1865. Pusey, Truth Eng. Ch., 12. The unnaturalness and strangeness of the facts.
1884. Spectator, 4 Oct., 1302/1. The unnaturalness of the situations in which he acts a part.
3. Want of natural grace or ease.
1803[?]. Dorothy Wordsworth, Recoll. Tour (1875), 49. The unnaturalness of a modern garden.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 205. What we call unnaturalness always has its spring in a man’s thinking too much about himself.
1876. A. Sidgwick, Gr. Prose, § 107. He will … be saved from falling into many unnaturalnesses of expression.
