unbe

English edit

From un- +‎ be.

unbe (no third-person singular simple present, present participle unbeing, no simple past, past participle unbeen)

(intransitive, rare, poetic) To lack being; to be nonexistent.
- 1901, Thomas Hardy, Poems of the Past and the Present, Edinburgh & London: Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., page 234:
  I cannot bear my fate as writ, / I'd have my life unbe; Would turn my memory to a blot, / Make every relic of me rot, / My doings be as they were not, / And what they've brought to me!
- 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXXIII, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 280:
  There is a saying that unseen is as good as unbeen; but in this case it was otherwise—unseen, Master Malrubius was more palpably present than ever before.
(transitive, rare, poetic) To deprive of being; to make nonexistent.

“unbe, v.¹”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
“unbe, v.²”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

unbe