unsight unseen

English

Adjective

unsight unseen (not comparable)

1. Dated form of sight unseen.
   • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras‎^[1], part 1, canto 2, lines 638–641:

     For to subscribe, unsight, unseen, / To an unknown Church-discipline, / What is it else, but before-hand / T'engage, and after understand?

   • 1712 October 16, Joseph Addison, “On Seducers—Procuresses—Letter from one”, in The Spectator‎^[2], number 511, quoted in The Works of Joseph Addison, volume 2, page 274, published 1842:

     It seems the general of the Tartars, after having laid siege to a strong town in China, and taken it by storm, would set to sale all the women that were found in it. Accordingly he put each of them into a sack, and, after having thoroughly considered the value of the woman who was enclosed, marked the price that was demanded for her upon the sack. There was a great confluence of chapmen, that resorted from every part, with a design to purchase, which they were to do 'unsight unseen.'

   • 1720, Daniel Defoe, Captain Singleton‎^[3], page 311:

     Their new Chaps were so eager, that they would have bargain'd with the old Captain before-hand: Nay Friend, said he, I will not trade with thee unsight and unseen; neither do I know whether the Master of the Sloop may not have sold his Loading already to some Merchants of Salset; but if he has not, when I come to him, I think to bring him up to thee.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:sight unseen.