1. Not wonted, usual, or habitual; not commonly heard, seen, practised, etc.; infrequent.
In very frequent use from c. 1810.
1553. Brende, Q. Curtius, 177 b. They put the Macedones in terrour, troublyng with their vnwonted crye.
1579. E. K., Ded. to Spenser’s Sheph. Cal., § 1. Old and vnwonted words.
1580. T. Wilson, Rhet. (ed. 2), 197. His maister marueilyng … at suche an vnwonted [1553 vnwonte] kindnesse.
1611. B. Jonson, Catiline, I. i. A strange vn-wonted horror doth inuade me.
1668. Glanvill, Sadducismus, 6. Epocha’s made of those unwonted events.
1713. Rowe, Jane Shore, I. ii. Man … Shall pity thee, and with unwonted Goodness, Forget thy Failings.
1743. Francis, trans. Hor., Epodes, V. 88. Soon the Wretch my Wrath shall prove, By Spells unwonted taught to love.
1764. H. Walpole, Otranto, ii. It is not seemly for me to hold farther converse with a man at this unwonted hour.
1808. Scott, Marm., III. xxi. His own menials … Beheld … the grisly Sire, In his unwonted wild attire.
1847. C. Brontë, J. Eyre, vii. Difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks.
1863. Stanley, Jew. Ch., xix. 428. The constant expectation of some new Prophet appearing in the most secluded or unwonted situation.
1876. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (ed. 2), IV. 291. Those who survived kept up life on strange and unwonted food.
b. Not wont to appear; rarely seen.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 301. Spring … calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones.
1825. Scott, Talism., xviii. It seemed as if a tear (unwonted guest) were gathering in his dry and glazened eye.
2. Not made familiar by practice; unused or unaccustomed to something. Used (a) predicatively with to, or ellipt., and (b) attrib.
(a) a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. xi. Philoclea … tenderly moved her feete, unwonted to feele the naked ground.
1628. May, Virg. Georg., III. 99. The Fishes … Float dead … to the shore: Sea-calves unwonted to fresh rivers fly.
1828–32. Webster, s.v., A child unwonted to strangers.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, II. I. 51. Boys unwonted to the tasks of war.
(b) 1791. Cowper, Iliad, I. 735. So He; then Juno,… smiling still, from his unwonted hand Received the goblet.
1822. Milman, Martyr Antioch, 108. Are not these chambers thine, That with their splendour load my unwonted eyes?
3. Going beyond ordinary limits. rare–1.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., 11. If I shall be large, or unwonted in justifying my selfe to those who know me not.
Hence Unwontedness.
1594. Southwell, M. Magd. Funeral Teares, 8 b. Let … the vnwontednesse of the miracle plead her pardon.
a. 1652. Brome, Mad Couple, II. i. I confesse it is (by reason of my unwontednesse to it) some difficulty for me.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 251. We encountred two horrid Shapes both for Grandeur and Unwontedness.
1861. Geo. Eliot, Silas M., iv. A too bewildering dreamy sense of unwontedness in his position.
1895. Daily News, 7 Nov., 5/3. A girdle of rubies which may have given a faint shock of unwontedness to the experience of even a Vanderbilt bride.
