Dictionary

undutiful en · ADJ

Etymology

From un- + dutiful.

Meanings

1. Not dutiful.
   • For myself, I felt so much self-reproach and contrition for my part in what had happened, that nothing would have enabled me to keep back my tears but the fear that Steerforth, who often looked at me, I saw, might think it unfriendly—or, I should rather say, considering our relative ages, and the feeling with which I regarded him, undutiful—if I showed the emotion which distressed me. 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 7, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
   • 1652, George Herbert, A Priest to the Temple, or, The Countrey Parson, reproduced in George Herbert Palmer (ed.), The English Works of George Herbert, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905, Volume 2, Chapter 6. The Parson Praying, p. 27, Besides his example, he, having often instructed his people how to carry themselves in divine service, exacts of them all possible reverence, by no means enduring either talking, or sleeping, or gazing, or leaning, or halfe-kneeling, or any undutifull behaviour in them, but causing them when they sit, or stand, or kneel, to do all in a strait and steady posture, as attending to what is done in the Church, and every one, man and child, answering aloud both Amen and all other answers which are on the Clerk’s and people’s part to answer […]
   • I know my duty; you are all undutiful: Lascivious Edward, and thou perjured George, And thou mis-shapen Dick, I tell ye all I am your better, traitors as ye are: And thou usurp’st my father’s right and mine. c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene v]:
   • The doctor retired into the kitchen, where, addressing himself to the landlady, he complained bitterly of the undutiful behaviour of his patient, who would not be blooded, though he was in a fever. 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book III:
   • I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children.—Not that I have much pleasure indeed in talking to any body. 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 20, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:
   • The son of a merchant in a city of Hindostan, having been driven from his father's house on account of his undutiful conduct, assumed the garb of a Kalenderee or wandering Derweesh, and left his native town. 1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 20:

Forms

Deriveds

undutifulness · undutifully

Synonyms

delinquent

Translations (4)

la impius (not dutiful) · nb uansvarlig (not dutiful) · sv oansvarig (not dutiful) · enm unkynde (not dutiful)