1. Not sociable or companionable; not readily or pleasantly associating with others.
1600. Holland, Livy, 292. The Tyburts … had in times past joined armes with the Frenchmen, a savage and unsociable nation.
1646. H. Lawrence, Comm. Angells, 188. Men were so form’d for Communion, as no doctrine can be avowed for good, which renders them unsociable.
1703. Rules Civility, 274. [Baseness] rather makes them to be accounted base, vindictive, savage, and unsociable.
1841. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, i. He looked unsociable enough.
1871. Jowett, Plato, II. 319. Whether a man is righteous and gentle, or rude and unsociable.
1899. W. T. Greene, Cage-Birds, 32. At other times … he is unsociable with his kind.
b. Of disposition, conduct, etc.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Water-Cormorant, Wks. III. 1. His best seruice is harsh and vnsociable.
1688. Savile, Lady’s New-Years Gift, 13. The Sullen are apt to place a great part of their Religion in Dejected and Ill-humour’d Looks, putting on an unsociable Face.
1710. Tatler, No. 149, ¶ 5. A severe, distant, and unsociable temper.
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T., Forester, vii. Surprised at his unsociable silence.
1861. Paley, Æschylus (ed. 2), Agam., 314/2. You would … reproach them for their unsociable behaviour.
2. Not readily or naturally going together; incompatible, incongruous.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., 779/1. This Ecclesiasticke text is handled elsewhere, and seemeth vnsociable to our begunne Subiect.
1697. Collier, Ess. Mor. Subj., I. 26. If Sense and Learning are such unsociable imperious things.
1779. Johnson, L. P., Cowley, ad fin. A boundless verse, a headlong verse,… seem to comprise very incongruous and unsociable ideas.
1827. Pollok, Course T., V. 558. Combining things Unseemly, things unsociable in nature, In most absurd communion.
b. Incapable of, averse to, uniting.
1676. Boyle, in Phil. Trans., II. 785. The Vial … contain’d two unsociable Liquors.
1678. Newton, Lett., Boyle’s Wks. 1772, I. p. cxiv. There is a certain secret principle in nature, by which liquors are sociable to some things, and unsociable to others.
3. Devoid of, interfering with, social intercourse.
1638. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 164. An old rotten weather-beaten Inn … placed in part of an unsociable desart.
1642. Howell, For. Trav. (Arb.), 45. Many Colonies … which lye squandered up and down in disadvantagious unsociable distances.
1861. Ld. Lytton & Fane, Tannhäuser, 105. As one … Sunder’d by savage seas unsociable From kin and country.
Hence Unsociableness; Unsociably adv.
1611. Florio, Insociabilita, *vnsociablenesse.
1644. Prynne, Ch. Govt., xii. 7. An extraordinary strangnes, unsociablenesse, and coldnesse of brotherly affection.
1871. Smiles, Charac., ix. 258. The comparative unsociableness of the Englishman.
1665. Brathwait, Comm. Two Tales, 2. None should be so *unsociably retired, as to ingross his Conceits to himself.
1787. J. White, Voy. N. S. Wales (1790), 58. The pavement … is so very unsociably narrow, that two persons cannot walk with convenience together.
