a. and sb. [UN-1 7, 12.]
1. Having no origin; uncreated.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 477. Plung’d in the womb Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wilde.
2. Not original; derivative; second-hand.
1774. Gerard, Ess. Genius, 42. Nothing appears in it uncommon or new; every thing is trite and unoriginal.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), I. 57. The evidence may be termed unoriginal in so far as the narrating witness … speaks of some other person and not of himself.
a. 1849. Poe, Diddling, Wks. 1865, IV. 269. He would return a purse … upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.
1897. W. P. Ker, Epic & Rom., 329. The ‘Song of Roland’ is comparatively late and unoriginal.
b. sb. One who lacks originality.
1847. Medwin, Life Shelley, II. 203. A cold, selfish, mathematical unoriginal, like Hobbes.
