(ppl.) a. Also 6–7 untract. [UN-1 8 and 9. The spelling untract is due to TRACT sb.3 8–11 and v.2 4–5. Cf. UNTRACTED.]
1. Through which no way has been found or made; not furnished with a track or path.
α. 1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 309. The rest … hauing on horsebacke all alone by vncouth and vntract waies, travailed three dayes without meat.
1684. Otway, Atheist, III. 32. Drawn by wing’d Horses through the untract Air.
1705. Rowe, Ulysses, III. 40. So the Eagle … beholds his hardy youthful Offspring Forsake the Nest, to try his tender Pinions, In the wide untract Air.
β. 1612. Bp. Hall, Contempl., IV. 353. That they might not erre in that sandy and vntracked wildernesse.
1659. T. Pecke, Parnassi Puerp., 172. The untrack’d path to Bliss.
1750. Carte, Hist. Eng., II. 391. After a long day’s march through untracked ways.
1812. A. Plumtre, Lichtenstein’s S. Africa, I. 350. The road was untracked and fatiguing.
1830. New Monthly Mag., Hist. Reg., Jan., 8/1. Regions yet untracked by any Europeans.
1894. Outing, XXIII. 347/2. A long, dark object lying … on the untracked snow beneath the trees.
2. Not tracked or traced; not followed up.
1680. Otway, Orphan, III. 504. At midnight thus the us’rer steals untract [1735 untrack’d] To make a visit to his hoarded gold.
1872. Ruskin, Fors Clav., xiv. 12. Just persons … untracked by the hounds of war.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Miner’s Right (1899), 146/2. A reflection of the deed still untracked and unavenged.
