Unpolished

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8, 5 b.]

  1.  Not made smooth or bright by polishing.

1382.  Wyclif, Deut. xxvii. 6. An auter … of stonus vnfourmed and vnpolishid.

c. 1475.  Cath. Angl., 293/1 (A.). Vn Pulysched…, jmpolitus.

1552.  Huloet, Vnpollished, and not perfitly wrought, raudus.

1605.  Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xvii. § 13. The better sort of Rules haue beene not vnfitly compared to glasses of steele vnpullished.

1662.  J. Bargrave, Pope Alex. VII. (1867), 122. Another thin piece of jasper stone, unpollished.

1751.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 166, ¶ 3. Fortitude, and probity,… are cast aside like unpolished gems.

1815.  J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 5. If the tool be unpolished.

1874.  J. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, vi. 73. Rough, unpolished angular fragments that have tumbled … from cliffs.

  transf.  1635.  Swan, Spec. M., iii. § 2 (1643), 48. Both of them [sc. the heavens] remained as it were unpolished or unfinished untill the fourth day.

  2.  Inelegant or rude in respect of style, language, etc.; not carefully finished.

c. 1489.  Skelton, Death Earl Northumbld., 127. My wordes vnpullysht be, nakide and playne.

1575.  Laneham, Lett. (1871), 15. The thing which heer I report in vnpolisht proez.

1585.  Daniel, Paulus Iouius, Pref., Wks. (Grosart), IV. 4. In like maner … haue I aduentured to place these my vnpolished labors on the Piller of your worthines.

1635.  in Verney, Mem. (1907), I. 99. Not daring to present any unpolished lines to such a judicious reader.

1673.  Phil. Trans., VIII. 5178. Of which many pregnant Instances … are registred in these un-polish’t Volumes.

a. 1704.  T. Brown, Satire Ancients, Wks. 1720, I. 26. To hear … Horace [called] an Author unpolished, languid, and without force.

1781.  Harris, Philol. Enq., III. xi. 468. At a time when the Languages of England and France were barbarous and unpolished.

1839.  Hallam, Hist. Lit., I. v. § 16. Budæus … is hard and unpolished.

1891.  Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, xxii. It cannot be Chrysippus; the Greek is too modern, and too unpolished.

  3.  Left rude or imperfect.

1596.  Edward III., I. i. 76. His lame vnpolisht shifts are come to light.

1647.  Clarendon, Contempl. Ps., Tracts (1727), 527. To reduce our unpolished speculations and conceptions into a prompt and ready practice.

  4.  Not refined in manners or ways of living; marked or characterized by lack of culture.

1593.  Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. ii. 271. The Commons, rude vnpolisht Hindes.

1647.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. § 4. The spirit of Craft and Sultilty in some, and the Unpolished Integrity of others.

1672.  Dryden, Def. Epilogue, ¶ 28. They were unlucky to have been bred in an unpolished age.

1703.  J. Savage, Lett. Antients, xxxvii. 99. I have had an unpolish’d Education … in Barbarous Nations.

1776.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., ix. (1788), I. 277. The unpolished wives of the barbarians.

c. 1815.  Jane Austen, Persuas., ix. Their parents’ inferior, retired, and unpolished way of living.

1853.  Lynch, Self-Improv., v. 112. An unpolished man need not be an ill-mannered one.

  Hence Unpolishedness.

1647.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., VII. § 279. That roughness and unpolishedness of his nature.

1652.  J. Wright, trans. Camus’ Nat. Paradox, V. 90. Those hearts, which may bee said to bee of Iron for their rude unpolishedness.