† unˈdecently, adv. Obs.
[Cf. un-1 11 and 5 b, and prec.]
1. Unbecomingly, unsuitably, improperly; = indecently adv.
| 1563 Homilies ii. Sacrament i. ¶2 Lest..this comfortable medicine of the soule vndecently receaued, tende to our greater harme. 1577 tr. Bullinger's Decades (1592) 637 Hee ought to be free, least the image of God should seeme to bee bond vndecently. 1628 T. Spencer Logick 171 We may not thinke, that he hath omitted it: for that is to charge him vndecently:..and against reason. 1671 Grew Anat. Plants iii. App. §4 The Branches whereof..must needs by their own weight, and that of their Fruit, undecently fall. 1716 M. Davies Athen. Brit. II. 96 He made early Applications to King Henry's Queen Dowager, who comply'd with him a little undecently. |
2. Unhandsomely, inelegantly.
| 1587 Presentmt. in Essex Rev. XV. 43 The church is undecently and unsemely and filthily kept. 1644 Laud Hist. Troub. & Trials (1695) xxxii. 310, I say so too, or else my Chappel must lye more undecently than is fit to express. 1664 J. Webb Stone-Heng (1725) 38 They are most undecently high, saith Scamozzi. 1673 Lady's Call. i. v. §32 Shall she take no care how sordidly, how undecently she appear when the King of Kings gives audience? |
3. With impropriety or indecency.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xxiii. (Arb.) 275 It was not vndecently spoken.., for it was the cleaneliest excuse he could make. 1603 Florio Montaigne iii. v. 522, I know a hundred Cuckolds, which are so, honestlie and little vndecently. 1655 Stanley Hist. Philos. iii. (1687) 92/2 Another time she offered to go to a publick show attired undecently. 1689 Burnet Trav. iii. (1750) 140 The great Libertinage that is so undecently practised by most Sorts of People at Venice. |