Unsupported

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8.]

  1.  Not supported by aid or assent; not backed up or corroborated.

1420–2.  Lydg., Siege Thebes, III. 2985. Farwel wisdam … For lakke only of supportacioun. For vnsupported … Amphiorax sighen gan ful sore.

1609.  Daniel, Civ. Wars, III. lxxix. He … will not avouch thy fact, But let the weight of thine owne infamie Fall on thee, vnsupported, and vnbackt.

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., Pref. To despaire the favourable looke of learning upon our single and unsupported endeavours.

1753.  Stewart’s Trial, 270. Deposing to a long romantic story, in which he is altogether unsupported.

1798.  S. & Ht. Lee, Canterb. T., II. 393. An idle … unsupported assertion.

1812.  Wellington, in Gurw., Desp. (1837), IX. 349. Leaving behind them unprotected and unsupported the guns of Captain M‘Donald’s troop.

1854.  Greenwood, Haps & Mishaps, 54. Yet thus far have I taken not one lonely and unsupported step.

  b.  Const. by.

1694.  Atterbury, Serm. (1726), I. iii. 103. How utterly unsupported either by the Secular Arm, or Secular Wisdom!

1752.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 194, ¶ 12. What can be expected from reason unsupported by fashion, splendour, or authority?

1831.  T. Hope, Ess. Origin Man, II. 235. This doctrine is … too unsupported by anything we see, to have had many adherents.

1897.  Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 618. This statement is utterly unsupported by facts.

  † c.  Not bold or confident. Obs.

1697.  Collier, Ess. Mor. Subj., I. 210. Whereas a diffident and unsupported Behaviour in a Clergyman, is often suppos’d to proceed from ignoble Qualities.

  2.  Not physically supported or sustained.

1635.  Person, Varieties, I. 33. The false-Prophet Mahomet, his Chest of Iron,… doth hang miraculously unsupported of any thing.

1681.  Stair, Instit., II. xxvi. 97. Whether Convalescence can be proven otherways, then by going unsupported to Kirk and Mercat, I have seen no decision.

1707.  Mortimer, Husb., 106. [Peas] run upon the ground unsupported with sticks.

1813.  Scott, Rokeby, II. xiv. Now, like the wild-goat, must he dare An unsupported leap in air.

1862.  Ansted, Channel Isl., II. xi. 288. The falling in of the unsupported roof.

  fig.  1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 432. Her self, though fairest unsupported Flour, From her best prop so farr, and storm so nigh.

1776.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. 328. On the slightest touch, the unsupported fabric of their pride and power fell to the ground.

  Hence Unsupportedly adv.; -ness.

1825.  Q. Rev., XXXII. 286. Mr. Bowles tells us (as insidiously, and as unsupportedly as usual) Pope was much more explicit.

1899.  J. H. Stirling, Philos. & Theol., xvi. 307. Contingency in the sense of unsupportedness, the powerlessness of things in themselves.