unworth
English
Etymology 1
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English unworth, unwurth, equivalent to un- + worth.
Noun
unworth (uncountable)
- Unworthiness; unworthliness; worthlessness.
- 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets[1]:
- Woe to the People that no longer venerates, as the emblem of God himself, the aspect of Human Worth; that no longer knows what human worth and unworth is!
- 1917, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Copper Streak Trail[2]:
- As the lawyer unfolded his plan the partner-clerk, as a devotee of cunning, found himself convicted of comparative unworth; with every sentence he deported himself less like Pelman the partner, shrank more and more to Joey the devil clerk.
- 1989, Richard Paul Janaro, Thelma C. Altshuler, The art of being human: the humanities as a technique for living:
- Feeling a sense of unworth, we kill ourselves in a number of ways.
Adjective
unworth (comparative more unworth, superlative most unworth)
- (obsolete) unworthy
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Milton to this entry?)
Etymology 2
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English unworth, unwurth, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English unweorþ, unweorþe (“unworthy, poor, mean, of low estate, worthless, contemptible, ignoble”), equivalent to un- + worth.
Adjective
unworth (not comparable)
- Not worth; not deserving of.
- 1894, Paul Leicester Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him[3]:
- This was rather pleasant, for she had to give Peter her hand, and so life became less unworth living to Peter.
- 1916, John Lang and Jean Lang, Stories of the Border Marches[4]:
- That would be something not unworth boasting about--that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay this modern Goliath.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms prefixed with un-
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English adjectives
- English terms with obsolete senses
- Requests for quotations/Milton
- English terms derived from Old English
- English uncomparable adjectives