ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not kept in check or under control; allowed free course or vent.
a. 1600. Hooker, Remedie agst. Sorrow (1612), 3. Naturall compassion … caused them … to poure forth vnrestrained teares.
1712. Berkeley, Pass. Obed., Wks. 1871, III. 131. So unrestrained [are] the passions of men.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, V. 516. Her tears now flowed fast from unrestrained delight.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, II. xxv. They all rose in a mirth sufficiently unrestrained to be any thing but patrician.
1879. McCarthy, Own Times, II. xxiii. 172. He was attacked with all the bitterness of a … very unrestrained animosity.
b. Not restricted or limited.
1622. [see UNPINIONED2.]
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., II. § 41. There being … an unrestrained Intercourse between the King’s Camp and Edenborough. Ibid. (1670), Ess. Tracts (1727), 184. The spacious fields of their unlimited and unrestrained contemplation.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., V. i. I. ii. (1904), II. 414. The emulation which an unrestrained competition never fails to excite.
1806. Surr, Winter in London, III. 219. The unrestrained intermixture of ranks … is a remarkable trait of your national manners.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxviii. 364. The men … had frequent and unrestrained intercourse with them.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 376. The ‘unantagonised’ or ‘unrestrained’ influence exerted by the cerebellum.
c. Not limited in application.
1827. Jarman, Powell’s Devises, II. 117. They admitted that the general words, if unrestrained, would carry the reversion.
2. Not subjected (or subject) to restraint in respect of action or conduct.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. xxix. Zelmanes … unrestrained parts, the minde & eie, had their free course to the delicate Philoclea.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., V. iii. 7. There … he dayly doth frequent, With vnrestrained loose Companions.
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 34. The vnrestrained, and free choyse of the will.
1691. Hartcliffe, Virtues, 68. He that is guilty of the Excess, is said to be … unrestrained and let loose to all Debauchery.
1751. Earl Orrery, Remarks Swift (1752), 67. With heads and hearts elated by affluence, and unrestrained by foresight or discretion.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), III. 122. What will not power effect, when unrestrained by conscience?
1825. Scott, Betrothed, ii. The revellers were unrestrained by the stricter rules of good-breeding.
1864. Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 349. The free and unrestrained life of an English lady.
1890. Retrospect Med., CII. 351. He walks about the room,… and in many respects is unrestrained in his movements.
absol. 1770. Glover, Leonidas (ed. 5), IV. 713. The unrestrain’d and free Will fly from danger.
b. In appositive use: Without restraint; unrestrainedly.
1596. Edward III., III. ii. 52. Slaughter and mischiefe walke within your streets, And, vnrestrained, make hauock as they passe.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., I. lxxxix. While o’er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrain’d.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxv. The girls indulged unrestrained in their grief.
1867. E. F. Bowden, Fathers of Desert, 374. Vice stalks abroad unrestrained.
3. Free from restraint of manner; easy, natural.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng., I. ii. 159. His letters … are simple, easy, and unrestrained.
1876. T. Hardy, Ethelberta, xliii. Whose manner … had little in common with Sol’s warm and unrestrained bearing.
Hence Unrestrainedness.
[1775. Ash.]
1889. Pop. Sci. Monthly, July, 296. No men on earth ever have had liberty in the sense of unrestrainedness of action.
