v. [UN-2 5.] trans. To remove (a star, etc.) from its sphere. Also in fig. context.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 48. Though you would seek t’vnsphere the Stars with Oaths.
1643. Howell, Parab. reflect. Times, 5. Touching the malignant Planets … I put them over to you, that … they may be unspher’d or extinguished.
1796. C. Anstey, Pleaders’ Guide (1803), 124. Th’ adventrous Engineer Who swore he would the Earth unsphere,… Give him but where to set his foot.
1820. Milman, Fall Jerus., 117. If ye have seen the moon unsphered, And the stars fall.
1857. P. Freeman, Princ. Div. Serv., II. 57. Thus too did it supply … a new centre or centres for the gravitation of its mighty forces … in lieu of that which had been, so to speak, unsphered.
fig. 1632. Milton, Penseroso, 88. Where I may … unsphear The spirit of Plato.
1806. H. K. White, Fragments, vi. Mine ear Longs for some air of peace,… That may the spirit from its cell unsphere.
1882. J. Brown, Horæ Subs., 3rd Ser. 4. Many have been the attempts to unsphere the spirit of a joke and make it tell its secret.
Hence Unsphered ppl. a.
1598. Chapman, Hero & Leander, III. 186. Thou … That … with the wings Of thy vnspheared flame visitst the springs Of spirits immortall.
1833. H. Coleridge, Poems, I. 41. Like a spectre of an age departed, Or unsphered Angel woefully astray—She glides along.
1849. M. Arnold, New Sirens, 251. The sunk eyes, the wailing tone, Of unspher’d, discrowned creatures.
