ppl. a. [UN-1 8 b. Cf. prec. and MDu. ongescaven.]
1. Not shaved.
1382. Wyclif, 2 Sam. xix. 24. The feet vnwasshen, and the beerd vnshauen.
c. 1450. Mirk’s Festial, 125. Þis man … abode half schauen and half vnschauen tyll þe Monday aftyr.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 430/2. Though beefore those ceremonyes vsed, priestes myghte consecrate vnshauen & vnannoynted,… yet nowe can there none dooe so, syth there is no priest made vnshauen and vnannoynted.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., V. 269. The indiciduous and unshaven locks of Apollo.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, II. iv. My uncle began … to dismiss his barber unshaven.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist, xxi. The unwashed, unshaven, squalid, and dirty figures.
1863. Miss Braddon, Aurora Floyd, xxii. His unshaven chin, dark with the blue bristles of his budding beard.
1870. Black, Kilmeny, iii. He went about in a frightfully unshaven and ragged condition.
2. Not smoothed or planed.
c. 1547. Surrey, Æneid, IV. 527. Their oares … from wood they bring, And mastes vnshaue, for hast to take their flight.
Hence Unshavenness.
1667. Waterhouse, Fire Lond., 62. What avails Sampson’s strength, if God give a key to the secret of it which resides in its unshavenness.
