a. [UN-1 11, 5 b.] Without or beyond question; indisputably, indubitably.
Chiefly in loose construction, qualifying the clause or sentence, as in (a).
(a) 1644. Vicars, God in Mount, 167. Such a Magistrate unquestionably is this present Lord Major.
1661. Cowley, Cromwell, Wks. (1906), 365. It was bold unquestionably for a man … so outragiously to murder his Master.
1756. Keysler’s Trav., I. 18. Europe is unquestionably not a little indebted to him.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Char., 7/2. Unquestionably a person of great prudence.
1884. F. Temple, Relat. Relig. & Sci., viii. 228. Newton’s investigations were unquestionably pursued … in reliance on the truth of the uniformity of nature.
(b) 1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., XI. ii. § 100. Wherein they conceived themselves to be before unquestionably estated.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 360. It might be made unquestionably evident.
1736. Butler, Anal., I. vii. How unquestionably little … the pleasures and profits of it are at the best.
1740. Cibber, Apol., 318. Whose Repentance I have been unquestionably inform’d, appear’d [etc.].
1846. Huxley, in Life (1900), I. 28. It is an unquestionably dull day.
1894. Illingworth, Personality, iii. 60. Man finds the world outside him to be intensely, unquestionably real.
