unpressingly

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ pressingly.

Adverb

unpressingly (comparative more unpressingly, superlative most unpressingly)

1. (rare) Not pressingly.
   • 1843, J[ohann] Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Jonathan Birch, Faust: A Tragedy, […], 2nd part, London: Chapman and Hall, […]; Leipsic: F[riedrich] A[rnold] Brockhaus, act II, scene vii, page 164:

     Not high Olympus—nor your fructive earth, / E’er to such fairy-forms gave birth: / They vault with sylph-like ease and grace, / From dragons-backs, to th’ hippocampi race: / And are so light of frame, that when they roam, / They ride unpressingly the billows’ foam!

   • 1928 November 10, Lionel Trilling, “Virginia Woolf’s Propaganda for Grace and Wit”, in New York Evening Post; quoted in Harvey Teres, “Lionel Trilling as Public Intellectual”, in The Word on the Street: Linking the Academy and the Common Reader (The New Public Scholarship), Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, published 2014, 2011, →ISBN, part 1 (The Academy and the Public), page 79:

     It has wit and pleasant malice, but they are not sudden and apart from it, like set jewels, but are inherent in it, and do their work swiftly, casually, and unpressingly.

   • 1974, Calvin Bedient, “Philip Larkin”, in Eight Contemporary Poets: Charles Tomlinson, Donald Davie, R. S. Thomas, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Thomas Kinsella, Stevie Smith, W. S. Graham, London: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 77:

     It possesses also a humble appeal of personality, a tone as unpressingly intimate as the touch of a hand on one’s arm.

   • 1986 December, Lois McMaster Bujold, chapter 5, in Ethan of Athos (Vorkosigan Saga), New York, N.Y.: Baen Books, published 1994 April, →ISBN, page 81:

     “Do you wish to stay for the interment?” asked Helda, formally and unpressingly.

Related terms

• unpressing