Unweeded

ppl. a. [UN-¹ 8. Cf. Du. ongewied.]

  1.  Of ground: Not cleared of weeds. Also fig.

  In later use freq. in fig. context in echoes of quot. 1602.

1602.  Shaks., Ham., I. ii. 135. Oh fie, fie, ’tis an vnweeded Garden That growes to Seed; Things rank, and grosse in Nature Possesse it meerely.

1624.  Ussher, Serm., 48. The field is the same, but weeded now, unweeded then.

1796.  Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 654. The human mind, like an unweeded garden, has been suffered to shoot up in wild disorder.

1817.  Coleridge, Lay Serm., 19. The evils of a rank and unweeded Press.

1824.  J. Telfer, Border Ball., 32. The wood it was dern, unweeded, and wild.

1842.  New Monthly Mag., I. 400. All the rashness, insolence, and brutality of an unweeded and newly-raised constabulary.

  2.  Not cleared away or rooted up as weeds. In quots. fig.

1626.  Jackson, Creed, VIII. v. § 1. All men by nature (that is from the unweeded relikes of our first parents’ pride) are prone to over-value themselves.

1645.  Hammond, Death-bed Repent., 29. The … hospitable soyle, contrary both to the thorny and stony ground, the one when the cares of the world are unweeded, unmortifyed, the other when [etc.].