ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Without being perceived or noticed. Occas. const. by or of.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 1676. Þat noþer clerk nor kniȝt … Schal passe vnperceyued & pertiliche of-souȝt.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 8657. Achilles grippit a gret speire,… Vnpersayuit of the prince prikit hym to.
1533. More, Apol., iii. Wks. 848/1. They would … haue their false folies passe and repasse all vnperceiued.
1593. Shaks., Lucrece, 1010. The crow may … unperceiv’d fly with the filth away.
1667. Milton, P. L., XI. 224. Hee alone … took his way, Not unperceav’d of Adam.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XXII. 194. Behind the felon unperceiv’d they past.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), III. 17. Unperceived of Harry, he displayed the bills to the company.
1834. Tait’s Mag., I. 189/2. The intrenchment being cast up unperceived, in the middle of the night.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 67. Chance words … which fall unperceived on the reader’s mind.
2. Not perceived; unobserved.
c. 1500. Three Kings’ Sons, 84. Departid this yonge gentilman … so secretly that he was vnperceyued.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xxxiii. 120. Galene also maketh the litle vnperceiued, or for the smallnesse contemned, to be mother of all illes.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. ix. Moisture … convey’d but by little and little…, and by unperceivd Passages, and yet … able to impart Fertility.
1768. Boswell, Corsica, p. xii. Even the succession of Chiefs has been unperceived.
1790. Coleridge, Progr. Vice, 7. By unperceiv’d degrees she tempts to stray, Till far from Virtue’s path she leads the feet away.
1842. Is. Williams, Baptistery, 43. Time marks not Death with unperceived tread Steal on behind.
1898. Lucy B. Walford, Archdeacon, II. ii. St. Andrews was unperceived, and drew back … disconcerted.
Hence Unperceivedly adv.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter ii. 18. That they may not too unperceivedly catch us, let me a little bare their hooke.
1663. Boyle, Usef. Exp. Nat. Philos., II. App. 352. Sometimes in filtration, some of the thinner parts of the oyl have unperceivedly passed through the paper.
1713. Derham, Physico-Theol., III. iv. 78. Descending (though unperceivedly) gently down … to the Sea.
