unˈchristened, ppl. a.
[un-1 8. Cf. MSw. okristnadher, and unkirsened ppl. a.]
1. Not made Christian; not converted to Christianity, unbaptized.
| c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 11974 Me þynkeþ hit were but tynt, þe stounde, To write þe names of so fele hounde Þat were vncristned in þys mounde. c 1350 Lybeaus Disc. 1358 What wendest thou, fendes fere? Uncrystenede that were Tyll y saw the wyth syght. c 1400 Apol. Loll. 2 Corneli centurio, ȝet vncristund, is clensid wiþ þe Hooli Goost. c 1440 Alph. Tales 219 Þai & all þer howsold become crestend, þat war haythen befor and vncristend. 1470–85 Malory Arthur ix. xxvii. 381 Nay said syre Persydes, hit is syr Palomydes, that is yet vncrystened. a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. VII, 23 b, The Moores or Mawritane nacion, beyng infideles and vnchristened people. 1570–6 Lambarde Peramb. Kent (1826) 211 A Pagan (or unchristened) King of Northumberland, had married a Christian woman. 1649 Jer. Taylor Gt. Exemp. iii. xvii. 74 The Holy-land is now in the dominion of unchristened Saracens. 1659 Baxter Key Cath. ii. iii. 429 Else most of the Christians of the world at this day are Apostates and unchristened. 1825 Scott Talism. xxv, Edith Plantagenet scorns the homage of an unchristened Pagan. 1868 J. H. Newman Verses Var. Occas. 114 Why should we fear, the Son now lacks His place Where roams unchristened man? 1881 Athenæum 24 Sept. 393/2 A survival of the feasts of our unchristened forefathers. |
| transf. 1805 Scott Last Minstr. iii. ix, Those iron clasps..Would not yield to unchristen'd hand. 1899 R. Bridges Poet. Wks. (1912) 348 Thy soft unchristen'd smile, That shadows neither love nor guile. |
b. spec. Of children. Also
transf.| 1725 Ramsay Gentle Sheph. ii. ii, At midnight hours o'er the kirkyard she raves, And howks unchristen'd weans out of their graves. 1777 Brand Pop. Antiq. 74 note, Children dying unbaptized;..It is thought here very unlucky to go over their Graves. It is vulgarly called going over ‘unchristened Ground’. 1791 Burns Tam o' Shanter 132 Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xiv. III. 462 Annihilation is the fate of the greater part of mankind, of heathens, of Mahometans, of unchristened babes. |
2. Unnamed.
| 1832 Miss Mitford Village Ser. v. (1863) 456, I do not mean, in this catalogue, to include the large proportion of bright, shallow trouting-streams, for the most part unchristened and unregistered. 1853 E. K. Kane Grinnell Exp. xxiv. (1856) 194 A large cape and several smaller headlands were seen,..all on the western side. They remain unchristened. |