From Middle English unethe, uneathe (“difficult, not easy”), from Old English unēaþe (“difficult, not easy”). By surface analysis, un- + eath. See eath, easy for further. First attested in the Old English period.
Meanings
(obsolete) Not easy; hard.
who he was, uneath was to descry. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 22:
From Middle English unethe, uneathe (“difficult, not easy”), from Old English unēaþe (“difficult, not easy”). By surface analysis, un- + eath. See eath, easy for further. First attested in the Old English period.
Meanings
(archaic) Not easily; hardly, scarcely.
Uneath may she endure the flinty streets, / To tread them with her tender-feeling feet. 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second 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 II, scene iv]:
(obsolete) Reluctantly, unwillingly.
Ryght so Sir Launcelot departed with grete hevynes, that unneth he myght susteyne hymselff for grete dole-makynge. 1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book VII, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC: