1. Irreligious.
1382. Wyclif, 1 Esdras i. 24. Who so euere weren vnreligious aȝen the Lord.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, I. xxiv. 34. Þan shal … euery vnreligious man sorowe.
c. 1500. Melusine, xlii. 314. The monkes…, whiche were of euyl, inordinate, & vnrelygious lyuyng.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. John, xi. 74. Nothyng is more vnreligyouse than Jewish religion, whiche consisteth in visible thinges.
1577. Fulke, Answ. True Christian, 11. These vnreligious and vngodly opinions of God.
1606. Dekker, Double PP, Wks. (Grosart), II. 163. Hee dare presse To th’ Eaves of Bishops Pallaces: Where, harsh and vn-religious notes Hee singes against their Reuerend Coates.
1814. Wordsw., Excurs., IV. 607. If unreligious, let him be at once, Among ten thousand innocents, enrolled A pupil.
2. Non-religious; not connected with religion.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr., XIV. v. VI. 508. The popular poetry … became profane, unreligious, at length in some parts irreligious.
1871. R. H. Hutton, Ess., I. 88. The difficulties involved in the conception of Creation being, however, totally unreligious.
1898. Educat. Rev., XV. 392. In the general movement…, education has become quite unreligious.
Hence Unreligiously adv., Unreligiousness.
c. 1535. in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. III. II. 363. Whom, after myn opynyon, war better to be at large and dymyssed from ther bondage then so vnrelygiously to remayne ayenst ther conscyens.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’ Parl., 30. Although there be great rashnesse in some, and vnreligiousnesse in more.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Blight, 38. We invade them impiously for gain; We devastate them unreligiously.
