ppl. a. [UN-1 8 b.] Not trodden or stepped on; untraversed. Also in fig. context.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter xvii. 31. Mi God un-filed [L. inpolluta; E., H. un-troden] es his wai.
1535. Coverdale, Ps. cvi[i]. 4. They wente astraye … in an vntroden waye.
1593. Sidney’s Arcadia, IV. (1922), II. 119. Vagabonding in those untroden places.
1606. Marston, Parasitaster, IV. G 4. Vntrodden snow is not so spotless.
1656. Cowley, Davideis, I. 23. Guid my bold steps … In these untrodden paths to Sacred Fame.
1735. Berkeley, Querist, § 418. So many roads untrodden, fields untilled, houses desolate.
1760–2. Goldsm., Cit. W., lxxxvii. Those untrodden forests … which formerly covered the face of the country.
1826. Mrs. Hemans, Forest Sanctuary, I. xiii. The red grapes untrodden strew’d the ground.
1849. Grote, Greece, II. xxxviii. V. 57. A wild, woody, and untrodden country.
Hence Untroddenness.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, xxiii. § 1. 203. The ruggednesse, and vntrodenesse of the pathes we haue walked in.
1681. R. Fleming, Fulfilling Script., II. Pref. (1726), 249. The untroddenness of this path, the weight … of the truths, with some study … to believe what I wrote.
