unstructuredadj.

1867 E. O. G. Willard Sexology as Philos. of Life vii. 97 Just so, to build a new human house, we must have independent, moving, living soul power and nerve force to do the work, and in this case it is absolutely necessary that we should have perfectly new, fresh, unstructured material.

1883 Med. & Surg. Reporter 14 July 52/1 The blood must be regarded as a true tissue..consisting, like other tissues, of structural elements and an unstructured matrix.

1936 F. Heider & G. M. Heider tr. C. Lewin Princ. Topol. Psychol. xii. 134 If one puts a rat into the maze without food, he gets a chance to ‘orient’ himself, which means that what is first an unstructured field becomes structured.

1973 Computers & Humanities 7 171 The current trend in elementary education is in the direction of open, unstructured classrooms.

2016 Owen Sound (Ont.) Sun Times (Nexis) 24 Aug. (Final ed.) a5 The unstructured anarchy that has characterized your life for the past two months is now gone.

1941 Phi Delta Kappan 24 171/2 Its [sc. the interview's] use, by experts, as an unstructured situation, in recognition of the fact that flexibility and adaptability to individual differences are essential if an accurate picture is to be obtained.

1958 G. M. Sykes Society of Captives App. A. 135 I think the last source of material—the relatively ‘unstructured’ talks with the captors and their captives—was the most useful.

1967 Jrnl. Pediatrics 70 317/2 Information about social and emotional adjustment for Group I was obtained by social workers through numerous unstructured interviews with the parents during hospitalization.

1998 Direct Apr. 50/1 Having a ‘concept toolkit’ usually helps them get to grips with the complexities of situations more quickly than if they took an unstructured approach.

2017 Daily Mail (Nexis) 12 Jan. There is a huge amount of research that suggests that this child-led, unstructured free play is vital for stimulating imagination and creativity.

1972 Times 1 Aug. 16/2 As usual, he is bursting with ideas, developing the unstructured poncho coat which I think is important.

1977 Lancashire Life Mar. 106/2 Spring coats are lean and unstructured, with their line emphasised with braid or other fabric trimming in contrast colour.

1984 Guardian 5 Mar. 11/4 Jackets are loose and unstructured.

2010 Oxoniensia 74 49 Because they were unstructured gowns, women could make them, and slowly a new craft developed, that of mantua-maker.

1972 I. V. Cully Change, Confl. & Self-determination i. 16 The new method is to think freely, unstructuredly.

1982 N. Macleod in J. A. Anderson Lang. Form & Ling. Variation 239 My aims are..to consider The Garden Party separately, this time attending (if a little unstructuredly) mainly to lexical matters.

2009 Hindustan Times (Nexis) 15 Feb. Reams of unedited interviews which meander unstructuredly, often losing sight of purpose and frequently dissolving into pointless chatter in disconcerting slang.

1946 D. Rapaport & R. Schafer Diagnostic Psychol. Testing II. iv. 5 Unstructuredness is achieved on the Association Test by asking for ‘the first word that comes to mind’.

1978 Ethos 6 40 The point I want to make here is that conflict is not so much a product of love itself as it is of unstructuredness; love in fact contributes to marital stability.

1998 Observer (Nexis) 12 July 17 Another powder blue shalwar kameez, a garment..featuring all the Out-Of-It Girl fashion essentials (ethnicity, wearability, unstructuredness, modesty, floaty girliness, natural fibres).

2016 D. A. Novikov Cybernetics v. 76 The unstructuredness of big data (text, video, audio, communications structures, etc.) is actually their characteristic feature.