Unserved

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8.]

  1.  Not served or furnished with something; not attended to.

c. 1350.  Leg. Rood (1871), 85. Sen sekenes es sent to þe Þir men sall noght vnserued be, Þai sall haue nayles or þai ga.

1433.  Rolls of Parlt., IV. 439/1. Yf I shuld paye hem, youre Household, Chambre and Warderope … shuld be unservid and unpaide.

1542.  Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 302. Onely Phocion was remainyng unserved by reason that the poison had been all consumed by the others.

a. 1585.  Montgomerie, Cherry & Slae, 1083. Who came uncald, unserv’d shuld sit.

a. 1600.  Deloney, Jack of Newberie, iv. Well, looke there be not one hog vnserued.

1624.  Essex his Ghost, 16. His people I hope will turne your golden … Coates into Coates of Male,… rather then your Soueraigne … shall bee vnserued.

1786.  R. Heathcote, Sylva (1788), 256. His boy therefore sent away unserved a customer.

1804.  R. Anderson, Cumbld. Ball., 79. The witch weyfe begg’d in our back seyde, But went unsarra’d away.

1832.  Ht. Martineau, Each & All, iii. 33. Conscience awakes … to the cry of unserved humanity.

1899.  Daily News, 3 Nov., 7/6. Several of their unserved guns were shelled vigorously.

  b.  spec. Not attended to by a priest or incumbent. (See SERVE v. 14.)

  The app. early instance in Wyclif’s De Ecclesia is prob. an error for ‘unlerned,’ the reading of MS. Bodl. 788.

1562.  in Strype, Ann. Ref. (1709), I. xxxi. 312. So that the people be not unserved or defrauded of a reasonable minister.

1587.  Holinshed, Chron. (ed. 2), III. 1142/1. Where through died manie … priests, so that a great number of parishes were vnserued.

1643.  Baker, Chron., Q. Mary, 106. This yeer … was great mortality, and specially of Priests, so as many Churches were unserved.

1765.  Blackstone, Comm., I. 466. It permits an infant to present a clerk … rather than … suffer the church to be unserved till he comes of age.

  2.  Not worshipped, regarded, or observed.

1387.  Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), II. 85. Þese feyned goddes … beeþ i-serued in Chestre … Þan is Pluto not vnserued, god of helle.

1390.  Gower, Conf., I. 355. The cherche is brent, the priest is slain,… The lawe is lore and god unserved.

c. 1450.  Mirk’s Festial, 267. Mony seyntys-dayes we leuen yn Þe ȝere vnseruet; for þay ben so many þat we may not serue hom all.

1532.  More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 495/2. Nor saint Paule … meaneth not yet they shall leaue the sacramentes vnserued which God hath taught.

  3.  Law. a. Of writs, summonses, etc.: Not served upon a person.

1465.  Paston Lett., II. 201. The shyrf sayd playnly that he … derst not serve it [sc. a writ],… and so it ys yet unservyd.

1476.  Acta Auditorum (1839), 49/2. Þe persons of þe inqueste allegeit before þe lordis þat þe said breve wes vnseruit.

1908.  Daily Chron., 10 Jan., 3/5. The constabulary were withdrawn, and the processes remained unserved.

  † b.  Sc. Not returned as heir. Obs.

1490.  Acta Dom. Conc. (1839), 125/2. Patrik and William … sall nocht fortify þe partij þat beis one seruit be that inquest.

  4.  Not served up.

1871.  Ruskin, Fors Clav., iii. The waiter then and there packed his knapsack and departed,… leaving my dinner unserved.

  5.  With for: For which service has not been done.

1555.  Inv. Ch. Goods (Surtees), 157. xij li bequeithed … to the finding of a prieste there for iij yeares…, whereof remayned unserved for at the tyme…, xiijs. iiijd.