ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not stained or (dis)colored; spotless, clean, pure.
1555. in Feuillerat, Revels Q. Mary (1914), 182. The same white cloth of sylver vnstayned.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., V. ii. 114. Th’ vnstained Sword that you haue vs’d to beare.
1629. Milton, Hymn Nativ., iv. The hooked Chariot stood Unstain’d with hostile blood.
1736. Thomson, Liberty, V. 556. Languedocian skies, That, unstain’d ether all, diffusive smile.
1807. Crabbe, Par. Reg., I. 24. By sighs unruffled or unstain’d by tears.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xiv. 97. The unstained blue of heaven.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 903. An unstained or faintly stained zone … across the bacillus.
2. Not morally stained or sullied; unblemished, untarnished.
1573. Daus, trans. Bullinger on Apoc. (ed. 2), 84. The Byshops began to defile the Lordes supper and other vnstained doctrines of fayth.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. x. Any sparkes of unstained duety lefte in them towardes me.
1624. Quarles, Job xv. 19. Preserue he then, vnstained in his brest, A milke-white Conscience.
1689. D. Granville, Lett. (Surtees), 81. The consideration whereof hath … kept me untainted and unstained.
1744. Thomson, Spring, 761. The towering Seat … of his Empire; which, in Peace, Unstain’d he holds.
1746. Francis, trans. Horace, Epist., II. ii. 196. A Person, who maintain’d A due Decorum, and a Life unstain’d.
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, VII. 236. No year of my eventful being Has passed unstained by crime and misery.
1863. Mrs. H. Wood, Verner’s Pride, xviii. He was proud of his independence, his unstained name.
Hence Unstainedness.
1685. H. More, Paralip. Prophet., 327. Sacerdotal,… because of the unstainedness of their condition as to Externals.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Pureness,… Unspottedness, Unstainedness.
