ppl. a. [UN-1 10.] Never relaxing or slackening; continuing with the same force; incessant: a. Of activity, etc.
1728. Thomson, Spring, 700. Inspiring God! who boundless Spirit all, And unremitting Energy,… agitates the Whole.
1768. Boswell, Corsica, ii. (ed. 2), 79. With unremitting constancy [he] endeavoured to restore the liberties of his country.
1819. Busby, Hist. Music, II. 256. We find in the music a continued and unremitting echo to the sense of the language.
1833. T. Hook, Parson’s Dau., I. i. [They] lived in the most unremitting hostility towards each other.
1871. Macduff, Mem. Patmos, v. 56. Engaged in unremitting toil.
b. Of persons. Also quasi-adv.
1736. Thomson, Liberty, IV. 71. Fleet on fleet Of barbarous pirates unremitting tore The miserable coast.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, IV. 238. [She] was … unremitting in boasting how well she had … kept them in order.
1817. J. Scott, Paris Revisit. (ed. 4), 359. He … was unremitting in his exertions.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., I. xiii. 420. He was unremitting in argument and entreaty to prevent the taking of their lives.
Hence Unremittingness.
1812. Shelley, Proposals, Pr. Wks. 1888, I. 283. Considering the unremittingness of its pressure.
1865. M. Arnold, Ess. in Crit., vi. (1875), 243. The very intensity and unremittingness of its appeal.
