unsungadj.
/(ˌ)ʌnˈsʌŋ/, U.S. /ˌənˈsəŋ/ 1. Not sung; not uttered by singing.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > music > performing music > singing > [adjective] > not singing or not sung
unsunga1426
songless1748
untuned1853
a1426 in Cal. Proc. Chancery Queen Elizabeth (1827) I. Introd. p. xx It wer better bell unrogne at þe sauntes tyme þan þe messe unsogne.
1539 Abst. Protocols Town Clerks Glasgow (1897) IV. 118 Geif it faillies to be left on-sung thre nychtis togidder.
1613 W. Browne Britannia's Pastorals I. i. 2 Drawne by time..To sing those layes as yet vnsung of any.
1843 T. Carlyle Past & Present iii. v. 216 Thy Epic, unsung in words, is written in huge characters on the face of this Planet.
1860 F. W. Faber Bethlehem 100 Numberless unlanguaged and unsung Magnificats.
a1894 R. L. Stevenson In South Seas (1896) iii. vi. 284 [They] gave up the unsung remainder of their ballet.
2. Not celebrated in or by song.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > contempt > obscurity or ingloriousness > [adjective] > not honoured > in specific way
unpresented1523
undescanted1573
undrunk1618
untriumphed1627
uncrowned1634
unsung1667
unlaurelled1733
untrophied1756
unchanted1820
ungartered1845
unstarreda1849
unhymned1851
unstoried1880
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost vii. 253 Thus was the first Day..: Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung By the Celestial Quires. View more context for this quotation
1697 J. Dryden tr. Virgil Æneis vii, in tr. Virgil Wks. 430 Nor Oebalus, shalt thou be left unsung.
1701 J. Addison Let. from Italy 14 Here..not a mountain rears its head unsung.
1743 E. Young Complaint: Night the Fourth 31 Why doubt we, then, the glorious Truth to sing, Tho' yet unsung, as deem'd perhaps too bold?
1805 W. Scott Lay of Last Minstrel vi. i. 162 The wretch..shall go down To the vile dust,..Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
1828 T. Carlyle Burns in Edinb. Rev. Dec. 279 A thousand battle-fields remain unsung.
1875 F. I. Scudamore Day Dreams 10 It is one of the unsung beauties of the earth.
Draft additions March 2006
unsung hero n. a person (esp. a man) whose heroism or achievements are unacknowledged or little-known; also in extended use.
ΚΠ
1860 Merry's Museum & Parley's Mag. Jan. 66/1 And many an unsung hero Now as in days of yore, Enacts his part in silence Upon some desert shore.
1899 Living Age 13 May 443 Our leucocytes are the true ‘unsung heroes’ of history.
1975 P. Kronhausen & E. Kronhausen Sex People i. 1 This book is about the unsung heroes and heroines of the ‘sexual revolution’ of our time.
1990 N.Y. Woman Oct. 20/2 The Maryknoll sisters and..those sisters of other religious congregations, so many of them unsung heroes.
Draft additions March 2006
unsung heroine n. a woman whose heroism or achievements are unacknowledged or little-known.
ΚΠ
1897 Washington Post 7 Mar. 14/3 (headline) An unsung heroine. Little California girl who gave her life for her brother.
2003 J. S. Lewis Sacred to Female Patriotism p. vii Office staff are always the unsung heroines of academic departments.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1926; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
adj.a1426