1. Without being suspected.
c. 1530. More, Answ. Frith, Wks. 833/1. Our english heretikes … might there imprynt theyr heresies amonge other matters, & so sende them hither vnsuspected.
1660. Nicholas Papers (Camden), IV. 251. To haue occasion therby to act unsuspected something … contrary vnto his professions.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 97. The governor putting so much confidence in us, that we might go on shore in the very fort unsuspected.
1798. S. & Ht. Lee, Canterb. T., II. 123. [He was] enabled, unsuspected, to trace … the emotions of the heart he best loved.
1813. Coleridge, Remorse, II. i. 57. But I had traced her, stolen unnotic’d on them, And unsuspected … heard the whole.
2. Not regarded with suspicion; not considered to be suspicious or doubtful.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, I. xiv. Hoping that (going for a woman) my lookes would passe, either unmarked, or unsuspected.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., III. v. 23. That ignoble Traytor, The dangerous and vnsuspected Hastings.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 147. For his too profuse bountie he could not be vnsuspected of his brother.
1670. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., XII. § 129. Those principal heads of the Clans who … were of known, or unsuspected Affection to the King.
1747. J. Lind, Lett. Navy (1757), I. 16. The courage of our common seamen is hitherto generally unsuspected.
1760. Ann. Reg., Hist., 39/2. They will find, both in his fortune and his virtue, abundant matter for just and unsuspected panegyric.
1827. Scott, Chron. Canongate, vi. Well judging that he would observe more wholesome caution if he conceived his character unsuspected, than if he were detected.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xviii. IV. 234. Russell, as far as can now be discovered, was still unsuspected.
absol. 1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Proc. E. Ind. Ho., 115. It was not justice to confound the unsuspected with the suspected.
b. Const. to with inf., or of.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. § 202. Those Infusions proceeded from those unsuspected to have any inclinations to Change.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Proc. E. Ind. Ho., 137/2. The director … was quite unsuspected of being concerned in the sale of it.
3. Not suspected to exist, or to bear a certain character; not thought of.
1620. J. Taylor (Water P.), Jack a Lent, B 3 b. Some againe … doe scout into … diuers secret vnsuspected places.
1654. Fuller, Two Serm., 23. Many a close, secret and unsuspected Christian.
1693. Congreve, in Dryden’s Juvenal, XI. (1697), 284. This Day … thou shalt perceive Whether, my self I keep those Rules I give, Or else, an unsuspected Glutton live.
1759. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, II. xvii. An unsuspected fissure in thy master’s pocket.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 545. A storm was near, An unsuspected storm.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xxv. The mountain-maiden show’d A clambering unsuspected road.
1874. J. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, iii. 26. It … opens up new channels of discovery which otherwise might have remained unsuspected and unknown.
Hence Unsuspectedness.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., X. ii. § 27. They hoped … (by the strangenesse of the act, and unsuspectednesse of the actors) to amuze all men.
1802–12. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), II. 433. The popularity, the unsuspectedness, is not purchased, but at the expense of appropriate experience.
