Unpleasant

a. [UN-¹ 7.]

  1.  Not pleasant, displeasing: a. To the senses.

1538.  Elyot, Rancidus,… vnsauery, or vnpleasaunt.

1555.  Turner, Herbal, I. 109. The colour is vnpleasanter and blacker.

1575.  Gasgoigne, Making of Verse, § 5. Wordes of many syllables do cloye a verse and make it unpleasant.

1585.  T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., III. i. 69 b. An euill fauoured and vnpleasant harmonie.

1611.  Florio, Inameno, vnpleasant to the view.

1667.  Dryden, Dram. Poesy, Ess. (ed. Ker), I. 69. Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object to a pleasant in a much shorter time than is required to this?

1725.  De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 253. Innumberable rills … falling from the cliffs, making a barbarous and unpleasant sound.

1796.  Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, IV. 223. The aspect of Mrs. Mittin … was … unpleasant to him.

1879.  Lubbock, Sci. Lect., ii. 32. Flies prefer unpleasant smells, such as those of decaying meat.

1892.  Photogr. Ann., II. 103. A dilute solution … changes the colour of the image to a not unpleasant brown.

  Comb.  1869.  Tozer, Highl. Turkey, II. 109. A most unpleasant-looking piece of water, marshy and full of reeds.

  b.  To the mind or feelings.

1535.  Coverdale, Ecclus. xxii. 6. Euen so is the … doctryne of wyszdome euer vnpleasaunt vnto fooles.

a. 1568.  Ascham, Scholem., II. (Arb.), 132. Preceptes in all Authors … without applying vnto them the Imitation of examples, be … barrayn, vnfruitfull and vnpleasant.

1596.  Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 254. The vnpleasant’st words That euer blotted paper.

a. 1679.  Hobbes, Rhet., I. xi. (1681), 28. Unpleasant are those things, which proceed from Necessity, as Cares, Study, Contentions.

1721.  Mrq. Tullibardine, in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. I. 126. Tho’ your Majesty permitts me to wryte even on ane unpleasant subject.

1762.  Goldsm., Nash, 200. That a man of pleasure leads the most unpleasant life in the world.

1839.  Thirlwall, Greece, III. xxvi. 419. To execute a commission which would require them to deliver many unpleasant truths.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 466. All of us … had an unpleasant feeling at hearing them say this.

  2.  Unentertaining, unfacetious.

1712.  Spect., No. 408, ¶ 4. It would be no unpleasant Notion, to consider the several Species of Brutes, into which we may imagine that Tyrants … might be changed.

1768.  Junius Lett. (1850), II. 220. In his assertions … there is something really not unpleasant…. It puts me in mind of the consulship which Caligula intended for his horse.

  3.  Unamiable.

1654.  [see UNPLEASING ppl. a. b].

  Hence Unpleasantish a.

1827.  Hood, Parthian Glance, 28. I can’t but … pronounce ‘Heads or tails’ with a child, an unpleasantish game. Ibid. (1844), Etching Moralised, 229. ’Tis a rather unpleasantish job.