unworth
English
Etymology 1
From Middle English unworth, unwurth, equivalent to un- + worth.
Noun
unworth (uncountable)
- Unworthiness; unworthliness; worthlessness.
- 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets:
- 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:
- 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.
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Adjective
unworth (comparative more unworth, superlative most unworth)
- (obsolete) unworthy
- 1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), John Milton, Tetrachordon: Expositions upon the Foure Chief Places in Scripture, which Treat of Mariage, or Nullities in Mariage. […], London: [s.n.], OCLC 1203280161:
- Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary , nor unworth the noting ; but I undertook not a general comment
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Etymology 2
From Middle English unworth, unwurth, from Old English unweorþ, unweorþe (“unworthy, poor, mean, of low estate, worthless, contemptible, ignoble”), equivalent to un- + worth.
Adjective
unworth (not comparable)
- (rare) Not worth; not deserving of.
- 1894, Paul Leicester Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him:
- 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:
- That would be something not unworth boasting about--that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay this modern Goliath.
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