unreflecting

unreflecting

English

Etymology

un- +‎ reflecting

Adjective

unreflecting (comparative more unreflecting, superlative most unreflecting)

1. (of a person) Not giving reflection or thought to one's actions, words, conclusions, etc.; (of an action, statement, conclusion, etc.) done without reflection or thought.

   Synonym: impulsive

   • 1671, Samuel Parker, A Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Politie, London: J. Martyn, Chapter 7, p. 569,

     Now what Discourse can be more suited to the Principles of these young Cubs of the Leviathan, than not to punish credulous and unreflecting People for being cheated and abused?

   • 1770, Thomas Chatterton, The Auction, London: George Kearsly, p. 22,

     When culprit reason truant plays,

     And wanders forth in fancy’s maze,

     Thy random shafts may please a-while,

     And raise the unreflecting smile,

     But soon as absent sense returns,

     Our cheek with indignation burns,

   • 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 32, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, OCLC 558196156, page 326:

     If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and every thing?

   • 1899, Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness in Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1902, p. 142,

     […] there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity.

   • 1945, Evelyn Waugh, chapter 3, in Brideshead Revisited […], 3rd edition, London: Chapman & Hall, OCLC 54130892, book 1 (Et in Arcadia Ego), page 56:

     How ungenerously in later life we disclaim the virtuous moods of our youth, living in retrospect long, summer days of unreflecting dissipation, Dresden figures of pastoral gaiety!

2. That does not reflect light or sound.
   • 1792, William Gilpin, “On Picturesque Beauty” in Three Essays, London: R. Blamire, p. 24,

     […] a mirror may have picturesque beauty; but it is only from it's reflections. In an unreflecting state, it is insipid.

   • 1913, James Elroy Flecker, “A Ship, an Isle, a Sickle Moon” in J. C. Squire (ed.), The Collected Poems of James Elroy Flecker, New York: Doubleday, Page, 1916, p. 175,

     A star-ship—as the mirrors told—

     Put forth its great and lonely light

     To the unreflecting Ocean, Night.

   • 1943, Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, London: Heinemann, 1960, Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 99,

     The steel hat on the coffin lay blackened and unreflecting under the winter sun […]

Derived terms

• unreflectingly