a. 1325. Prose Psalter, xiii. 4. Alle boweden, to-gider hij ben vnprofitable.
1390. Gower, Conf., I. 263. Envie … is … to mankinde unprofitable.
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 2268. Swiche an eschaunge [is] but vnprofitable.
c. 1435. Chron. London (Kingsford, 1905), 42. Demyng hym sylff … vtterly vnprofitable to the Rewle and good gouernaunces off the Rewme.
1526. Tindale, Heb. xiii. 17. That is an vnproffitable thynge for you.
1577. Googe, trans. Heresbach’s Husb., 139. So that the Master be not deceiued with an olde unproffitable flocke.
1630. Capt. Smith, Trav. & Adv., xv. 27. Any beast unprofitable for service they kill.
1654. S. Clarke, Eccl. Hist. (ed. 2), I. 25. Such men as labor for shortlived honour profitablest.
1735. Johnson, Lobo’s Abyssinia, Voy., i. 7. To expose ourselves … to a Death almost certain and unprofitable.
1826. F. Reynolds, Life & Times, II. 377. This arduous, unprofitable, and ungracious office.
1878. Lecky, Eng. in 18th C., II. vii. 302. Prizes offered … for reclaiming unprofitable bogs.
absol. 1838. Penny Cycl., XI. 345/2. To distinguish good from evil,… the profitable from the unprofitable.
† b. As adv. Unprofitably. Obs.–1
c. 1425. Orolog. Sapient., v., in Anglia, X. 360/12. Þat I hadde so vnprofitabil spendid þe tyme.
