unˈpleasantness
[un-1 12.]
a. The quality of being unpleasant. (Also with a and pl.)
| 1548 Elyot, Iniucunditas, vnpleasauntnesse. 1594 O. B. Quest. Profit. Concern. K 3 b, I stand in very little neede..to haue these vnpleasantnesses renued or made lasting vnto me. 1596 P. Barrough Meth. Physick viii. 461 So great inconuenience and vnpleasauntnesse of tast. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1156 The Mathematical rudiments which children be taught, at the beginning trouble them..; but this unpleasantnesse continueth not alwaies with them. 1635 J. Swan Spec. M. vi. §2 (1643) 201 Sea-water..by passing through divers windings..of the earth, is deprived of all unpleasantnesse. a 1665 Goodwin Filled with the Spirit (1670) 394 Which would occasion a great disparagement and unpleasantness in the World. 1808 L. Murray Eng. Gram. I. 455 Here there is some degree of harshness and unpleasantness [in the rhythm]. 1830 Wordsw. in C. Wordsw. Mem. (1851) II. 226 Another unpleasantness arose from the same cause. 1852 Dickens Bleak Ho. xlv, I have made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these unpleasantnesses. |
b. the late unpleasantness (U.S.), the American Civil War; also transf.
| 1868 D. R. Locke Ekkoes from Kentucky 23 (Th.), That cuss cum back here, doorin' the late onpleasantniss, kernel of a rigiment. 1872 Harper's Mag. Feb. 479/1 During our ‘late unpleasantness’ a convalescent hospital was established..in Nashville. 1903 N.Y. Times 19 Sept. 3 The only soldier to be killed from Orange during the late unpleasantness with the Filipinos. 1930 S. Henry Conquering Great Amer. Plains 33 When ‘the late unpleasantness’ terminated, the Texan drover lacked a satisfactory market. 1948 Amer. Jrnl. Nursing Dec. 770/2 Among the stamps of particular interest to nurses to come out of the ‘late unpleasantness’, are a Hungarian Red Cross series,..and a German child welfare series. 1981 Times 25 Aug. 7/1 The British and the Germans..were all of that older generation which well remembers the late unpleasantness between our two countries. |