unschoolmarmish

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ schoolmarmish.

Adjective

unschoolmarmish (comparative more unschoolmarmish, superlative most unschoolmarmish)

1. Not schoolmarmish.
   • 1878 July 27, “A Marriage that Didn’t Come Off”, in The Iola Register, volume XII, number 31, Iola, Kan., front page, column 6:

     A young man on Minnesota Street and one of the lady teachers in one of the public schools not far from Cass Avenue, having concluded that a consolidation of their joys and sorrows would lead to their mutual advantage, resolved that upon the 17th day of July, 1878, at 8 o’clock in the evening, they would be joined in holy wedlock. […] The young man didn’t know a license was necessary. He begged the minister to go on. The minister respected the majesty of the law and refused. The bride burst into very un[-]school-marmish tears; she sobbed and prayed the hard-hearted clergyman to look upon that wedding outfit and complete the ceremony.

   • 1921, Harvey Wickham, “Introducing the Garden of Eden”, in The Clue of the Primrose Petal, New York, N.Y.: Edward J. Clode, page 9:

     So now, stimulated by some further experience with that world which does not care a tinker's damn whether a verb agrees with its subject in number and person or not, she permitted the taxicab to jounce her smile out of all semblance to anything calmly superior and into a very unschoolmarmish grin.

   • 1938 April 29, John Brophy, “Books of the Day: New Fiction: Three Irish Novels”, in The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, number 25,868 Daily Telegraph / 51,739 Morning Post, London, section “Miss Kate O’Brien”, page 22:

     He is attracted to an unschoolmarmish schoolmistress, but cannot settle down to Ireland.

   • 1939, Anecho: The Yearly Publication of the Provincial Normal School, Victoria, B.C., page 6:

     Alma is an experienced teacher from Manitoba, here for a Refresher Course. She readily fitted into the activities of the School. Many times she added her apt, unschoolmarmish comments to impromptu discussions.

   • 1939 April 9, The Courier-Journal, volume CLXIX, number 25,666, Louisville, Ken., section 4, page 7:

     You’ll find after-Easter bargains that will tempt you to start from your toes and work right on up to your hat—an utterly frivolous, “un-schoolmarmish” one, please!

   • 1946 December 2, Celestine Sibley, “Relentless Approach Of Christmas Things”, in The Atlanta Constitution, volume LXXIX, number 170, Atlanta, Ga., page 7:

     We tiptoed backstage in search of our second grader and found Mrs. Brown, who handles second graders with humor and affection, leaning against a packing case muffling a hearty case of un[-]school-marmish hysterics.

   • 1947, Samuel Hopkins Adams, chapter 27, in Banner by the Wayside, New York, N.Y.: Random House, page 288:

     “Drat the terms!” replied Durie with unschoolmarmish vigor.

   • 1954 May–June, Peg Stewart, “Agnes Macphail”, in Food for Thought, volume 14, number 8, Toronto, Ont.: The Canadian Association for Adult Education, page 17, column 1:

     She used to sit on the counter, swinging her legs in a very unschool[-]marmish fashion.

   • 1957, Ritchie Calder, Men Against the Frozen North, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd; Toronto, Ont.: Thomas Nelson & Sons (Canada) Ltd, page 73:

     As Florence Phillips, the unschoolmarmish principal said to me, ‘It’s exciting to be in at the beginning of something and to have a hand in its creation.’

   • 1962 April 15, “Reply from a Headmistress”, in The Sun-Herald, Sydney, N.S.W., page 106:

     Attractive Miss Dawn Mackay, formerly a dancing teacher, who received the controversial appointment as headmistress at Heathfield, Britain’s top girls’ school, has finally spoken out in reply to her critics. […] A soft-voiced, well-groomed decidedly unschoolmarmish Scot, the 32-year-old willow-slim Miss Mackay admits she, too, thought the idea of her appointment a little odd at first.

   • 1962 December 11, The Bakersfield Californian, volume 76, number 114, Bakersfield, Calif., page 2, column 1:

     […] not only an authoritative pedagogue in the distillation of the . . . arpeggios and acciaccaturas . . . is the ever sweet singer of songs ANNE VAJDA . . . whose “unschool-marmish” looks . . . make her a very popular member of our local academy of higher learning […]

   • 1965, Clifton Fadiman, “Commentary”, in Fifty Years: Being a Retrospective Collection of Novels, Novellas, Tales, Drama, Poetry, and Reportage and Essays (Whether Literary, Musical, Contemplative, Historical, Biographical, Argumentative, or Gastronomical); All Drawn from Volumes Issued during the Last Half-Century by Alfred and Blanche Knopf Over This Sign and Device, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, section “Reportage and Essays”, page 717:

     H. L. Mencken (1880–1956)—let us say it baldly—was not only one of the greatest journalists who ever lived but also one of the best writers of American prose of his time and just conceivably in our whole history. The judgment can stand only if our canons are non-academic. Mencken was impolite, noisy, and unschoolmarmish. He used exaggeration, vituperation, catch-as-catch-can epithets, slang, facetious Teutonisms, facetious Latinisms, sesquipedalian jocularity. Fowler would have execrated him. Any professor would.

   • 1974, Kay Martin, Vanessa, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 209:

     Corinne Antell, exotic in an East Indian sari I had not seen before, a gold lamé creation that reflected her unschoolmarmish affluence, was politely demure.

   • 1986, E. N. Welch, “Just an Unofficial Investigation”, in Cynthia Manson, editor, Murder on Main Street: Small-Town Crime from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine & Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, New York, N.Y.: Barnes & Noble Books, published 1993, →ISBN, page 238:

     The door opened, and there stood Miss Ellerby, looking as Miss Ellerby should, unschoolmarmish and casually chic in a silky shirt, faded jeans, and running shoes.

   • 1990 May 11, Edwin M. Yoder Jr., “Protest terribly patronizing”, in The State, 99th year, number 131, Columbia, S.C., page 19-A, column 1:

     When she was barely 20, my mother collected her college degree and, remarkably in the South of the early 1920s, moved hundreds of miles to become a schoolmarm (a very lively and un-schoolmarmish one I am sure) in North Carolina.

   • 1994, Maria von Wedemeyer, translated by John Brownjohn, edited by Ruth-Alice von Bismarck and Ulrich Kabitz, Love Letters from Cell 92: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Maria Von Wedemeyer, 1943-1945, HarperCollinsPublishers, →ISBN, page 92:

     Little Gottfried is waving a building brick under my nose and saying, ‘Aunt Miesenmaus, Goffi write to Uncle Dietrich too!’ – so I keep having to break off and be auntishly unschoolmarmish. I don’t think any aunt has ever been so besotted with her nephew. I wish I could bring him to see you some time.

   • 1995, Paula Detmer Riggs, Her Secret, His Child, Silhouette Books, →ISBN, page 34:

     Mitch knew he was supposed to be impressing Bradenton’s cool and collected lady president, but the pity he’d seen in her eyes at first meeting had gotten his back up before she’d even opened that very unschoolmarmish mouth of hers.

   • 1997, Lydia Adamson, A Cat on Jingle Bell Rock: An Alice Nestleton Mystery, Dutton, →ISBN, page 19:

     He whipped off his hat and sat down quickly, as if obeying a severe schoolmarm. He didn’t know that I was having very unschoolmarmish thoughts just then. My, how handsome he is, I was thinking.

   • 1999, Jon Baker, Varsity Blues, MTV Books, →ISBN, page 148:

     She stepped out of it with lean, long, gorgeous, black-stockinged legs and a pair of very unschoolmarmish spike heels.

   • 2016, Holly Cortelyou, chapter 8, in Last Resort Love (Wescott Springs #1):

     Krissa thought of his arms holding her close, and she found herself stifling a blush. She was thinking very un-schoolmarmish thoughts.

   • 2021, Danni Roan, Devin’s Desire (Tales from Biders Clumb; volume 17), →ISBN, page 66:

     “It's obvious you’re in love with her,” the very, un-schoolmarmish, woman grinned.