ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not freed from some obligation.
1533. Bellenden, Livy, V. xii. (S.T.S.), II. 189. The senate … wald nocht suffir him to be … vnrelevit of þe vote be him made to apollo.
2. Not provided with relief; not aided or assisted.
1599. [see UNRANSOMED].
1609. Drayton, Leg. T. Cromwell, 23. It better should him please, Farre out of sight to perish here vnknowne, Then vnrelieu’d bee pitied of his owne.
1656. Cowley, Davideis, IV. 446. If unrelieved seven days by Israels aid, This bargain for ore-rated Life is made.
1694. F. Bragge, Disc. Parables, vii 269. The thefts … of such, whose unrelieved poverty forced to be thus wicked.
1719. J. Roberts, Spinster, 335. To leave the afflictions … of their … fellow-creatures neglected and unrelieved.
1757. W. Wilkie, Epigoniad, II. 49. Has … unreliev’d the stranger left my door?
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, 25. That none of their distresses should be unrelieved.
1885. C. E. Pascoe, Lond. of To-day, xxxii. 283. Many sufferers … are altogether unrelieved for want of funds.
3. Not freed from depressing or monotonous character; not diversified or varied (by something).
1764. Gibbon, Misc. Wks. (1814), IV. 397. Torments the more horrible in his … solitary state, unrelieved by the hope of glory.
1828. Q. Rev., XXXVIII. 219. An unrelieved series of miseries and crimes.
1857. Robertson, Serm., Ser. III. vii. 112. Sacrifice alone, bare and unrelieved, is … dead.
1882. Floyer, Unexpl. Baluchistan, 248. An oval lake of rough boulders, quite flat, and unrelieved by tree or shrub.
Hence Unrelievedly adv.
1876. Meredith, Beauch. Career, xv. The poor are everlastingly, unrelievedly, in the abysses of the great sea.
1899. Mackail, Life Morris, II. 41. Modern glass, some of it unpainted, the rest … unrelievedly hideous.
