Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Unsight

Un-sight′

,
Adj.
Doing or done without sight; not seeing or examining.
[Colloq.]
Unsight unseen
,
a colloquial phrase, denoting unseeing unseen, or unseen repeated; as, to buy a thing unsight unseen, that is, without seeing it.
For to subscribe,
unsight, unseen
,
To a new church discipline.
Hudibras.
There was a great confluence of chapmen, that resorted from every part, with a design to purchase, which they were to do “
unsight unseen
.”
Spectator.

Definition 2024


unsight

unsight

English

Noun

unsight (uncountable)

  1. Absence of sight; lack of vision
    • 2012, Gregory Tate, The Poet's Mind: The Psychology of Victorian Poetry 1830-1870:
      He tries to correct this unsight in the second stanza, asking a series of speculative (and rhetorical) questions about his cousin's life.
    • 2013, Dr Rosemarie Morgan, The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy - Page 405:
      [...] as dame in her dwelling, whereby I may picture her there; And in vain do I urge my unsight To conceive my lost prize At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light, And with laughter her eyes.
    • 2013, Peter V. Brett, The Daylight War - Page 566:
      Her robes shimmered with wards of unsight stitched in electrum thread.

Etymology 2

From un- + sight.

Verb

unsight (third-person singular simple present unsights, present participle unsighting, simple past and past participle unsighted)

  1. (transitive, rare) To remove the sight of or from
    • 1996, Andrew J. Webber, The Doppelgänger - Page 297:
      The veil thus marks out the objects of both sexual and metaphysical desire as 'Scheingestalten'. A similar veil unsights the lover's gaze in Angelika as he perceives her 'wie durch einen Schleier' (S 1 116).
  2. (firearms) To lose sight on a target
    • 2012, Anthony Price, The '44 Vintage:
      Just jeep as the Sten magazine emptied there came a single shot from the far end of the lane and in the same instant a bullet cracked over Butler's head.The jeep swung sharply to the right, unsighting him.