ppl. a. [UN-1 10, 5 b.]
1. Not softening or yielding; esp. not giving way to feelings of kindness or compassion.
(a) 1588. Shaks., Tit. A., II. iii. 141. Be your hart to them, As vnrelenting flint to drops of raine.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., V. (1626), 93. The blade from vnrelenting stone rebounds.
1749. Smollett, Regicide, IV. ix. Him hath the unrelenting dagger torn From my parental arms.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, V. I. 148. The unrelenting edge Cleft at its root the tongue.
(b) 1590. Marlowe, 2nd Pt. Tamburl., V. iii. If the vnrelenting eares or death and hell be shut against my praiers.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., II. i. 58. The irefull Arme Of vn-relenting Clifford.
1634. Cowley, Elegy R. Clerke, 27. Who hath such hard, such unrelenting Eyes, As would not weep when so much Vertue dyes?
1717. Pope, Iliad, XI. 178. These words … The youth address’d to unrelenting ears.
1774. Monthly Misc., June, 309. Thy [sc. Death’s] unrelenting hand … snatch’d Chaucer from our arms.
1813. Byron, Br. Abydos, II. xxvii. Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting chief!
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, I. 257. To save him from falling alive into the power of his unrelenting foes.
1853. Miss Yonge, Heir of Redclyffe, xxxii. I don’t think you can be very unrelenting when you see … how altered he is.
(c) 1608. Yorksh. Trag., X. 7. In the handes of vnrelenting lawes.
1647. Stanley, Poems, Despair. I will no more Vainly implore The unrelenting Destinies.
1697. Dryden, Æneis, VI. 763. These are the realms of unrelenting Fate.
1809–11. Combe, Syntax, XV. 26. The car Of furious, unrelenting War Leaves the dire track of streaming gore.
1813. Lamb, Recoll. Christ’s Hosp., Wks. 1908, I. 186. The heavy unrelenting arm of this temporal power.
b. Not slackening or relaxing in respect of severity, harshness, or determination.
(a) 1609. Daniel, Civ. Wars, IV. lxxxiii. [His] vnrelenting paines do neuer cease.
1656. Cowley, Pindar. Odes, I. vi. Unrelenting torments prove The heavy Necessary effects of Voluntary Faults.
1743. Francis, trans. Hor., Epodes, xvii. 44. You glow with unrelenting Fire, Till by the rapid Heat calcin’d, Vagrant I drive before the Wind.
1795. Burns, ‘Now Spring has clad,’ 15. Love, wi’ unrelenting beam, Has scorch’d my fountains dry.
1816. Shelley, Lett., in Sothern’s Catal., No. 12 (1899), 51. Precipitous mountains, the abodes of unrelenting frost.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, III. 377. The unrelenting pressure of the revenue system.
(b) 1614. Jackson, Creed, III. xiii. § 12. Vnrelenting perseuerance in traiterous plots.
1689. Cotton, Poems Sev. Occas., 648. Bow-men of unrelenting Minds, Whose Shafts are Feathered with the Winds.
1715. Atterbury, Serm. (1734), I. 119. An Act … of deliberate and unrelenting Malice.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xlii. IV. 245. The slaughter still raged with unrelenting fury.
1821. Lamb, Elia, I. Old Benchers In. T. The long-resolved … puttings off of unrelenting bachelorhood.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiii. III. 316. With unwearied, unscrupulous and unrelenting ambition.
2. Not slackening or slowing down.
1817. Scott, Harold, V. x. With unrelenting pace, From grave to cradle [he] ran the evil race.
Hence Unrelentingly adv., Unrelentingness.
1637. Jackson, Serm., Lk. xiii. 5, 61. It is one thing to be rebellious, another to bee *unrelentingly rebellious.
1777. Potter, Æschylus, Furies, 409. Cloath’d in terrors we appear, Unrelentingly severe.
1812. L. Hunt, in Examiner, 4 May, 275/1. [He] is … unrelentingly orthodox.
1869. Tozer, Highl. Turkey, II. 49. The Albanian soldiery … unrelentingly pursued their object.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Impenitentness,… *unrelentingness.
1834. De Quincey, Autob. Sk., Wks. 1853, I. 359. Such in its unrelentingness was the persecution.
1861. Geo. Eliot, Silas M., viii. He had constantly suffered annoyance from witnessing his father’s sudden fits of unrelentingness.
