uneath
English edit
Alternative forms edit
- unneth (14th-17th centuries)
- unnethe, unnethes
- uneth, unethe, unneath, unnethes, unnethis, unethes, uneathes
Etymology edit
From Middle English unethe, uneathe (“difficult, not easy”), from Old English unēaþe (“difficult, not easy”); equivalent to un- + eath. More at eath, easy.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
uneath
- (obsolete) Not easy; hard.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 22:
- who he was, uneath was to descry.
Antonyms edit
Adverb edit
uneath
- (archaic) Not easily; hardly, scarcely.
- 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:
- Uneath may she endure the flinty streets, / To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.
- (obsolete) Reluctantly, unwillingly.
- 1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book VII, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC:
- Ryght so Sir Launcelot departed with grete hevynes, that unneth he myght susteyne hymselff for grete dole-makynge.
- (please add an English translation of this quotation)