unfledged en · ADJ · etymology 1
Pronunciation
- /ˈʌnflɛd͡ʒd/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- /ˌʌnˈflɛd͡ʒd/ (General-American)
- (Southern-England) audio
- /ˌʌnˈflɛd͡ʒd/ (Received-Pronunciation)
- (General-American) audio
Etymology
From un- (suffix meaning ‘not’) + fledged (“furnished with feathers or wings”, adjective).
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Not having feathers.
This knave, […] shoes horses better than e'er a man betwixt us and Iceland; and so he gives up his practice on the bipeds, the two-legged and unfledged species, called mankind, and betakes him entirely to shoeing of horses.
1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 235:Ambition is firſt Miniſter of State; / Love's but a ſecond in the Cabinet; / nor can he feather there his unfledg'd Shaft / But from Ambition's VVing: […]
1728 (date written), Edward Young, The Brothers. A Tragedy. […], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley […], published 1753, →OCLC, Act II, page 20:
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(not-comparable) Not having feathers. ▸ Of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly.
"The little Durands were there, I conclude," said she, "with their mouths open to catch the music, like unfledged sparrows ready to be fed. They never miss a concert."
1817 (date written), [Jane Austen], chapter IX, in Persuasion; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volume III, London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC, page 168:"Boy and girl. Aren’t they beauties?" said the proud papa, beaming upon the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels.
1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “Domestic Experiences”, in Little Women: […], 2nd part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 73:"Ay, but thou must whistle louder than an unfledged owzle," said the boy, as Tressilian, having laid down his money, and half ashamed of the folly he practised, made a careless whistle—"You must whistle louder than that, for who knows where the smith is that you call for?—He may be in the King of France's stables for what I know."
1821 January 8, [Walter Scott], chapter X, in Kenilworth; a Romance. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; and John Ballantyne, […]; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 253:[W]e poore vnfledg'd / Haue never vving'd from vievv o' th'neſt; nor knovves^([sic – meaning know]) not / VVhat Ayre's from home.
1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 381, column 2:[T]his ſuperannuated Beldame gapes for Flattery, like a Neſt of unfledged Crovvs for Food; and vvith them too, gulps dovvn every Thing that's offer'd her—no matter hovv Coarſe; […]
1752, Samuel Foote, Taste. A Comedy, […], London: […] R[ichard] Francklin, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 3:The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.
1854 August 9, Henry D[avid] Thoreau, “The Bean-Field”, in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 173:
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(figuratively, not-comparable) Of a person: not yet fully grown or mature; lacking experience, like a novice or tyro; immature, inexperienced; hence, of or relating to youth.
Temptations haue ſince then been born to's: for / In thoſe vnfledg'd dayes, vvas my VVife a Girle; / Your precious ſelfe had then not croſs'd the eyes / Of my young Play-fellovv.
c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 278, column 1:I have not yet heard any further particulars, which are to be observed in this society of unfledged statesmen; but I must confess, had I a son of five-and-twenty, that should take it into his head at that age to set up for a politician, I think I should go near to disinherit him for a blockhead.
1712 February 29 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “MONDAY, February 19, 1711–1712”, in The Spectator, number 305; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume IV, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 18:But do not dull the palme vvith entertaine, / Of euery nevv vnfledg'd courage, […]
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shake-speare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and Iohn Trundell, published 1603, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], signature C2, recto:He had long since determined that Magdaléna should marry no one of the sons of his moneyed friends, nor yet any of the sprouting lawyers or unfledged business youths who made up the masculine half of the younger fashionable set.
1898, Gertrude Atherton, chapter XXIII, in The Californians, London; New York, N.Y.: John Lane, The Bodley Head, →OCLC, book I, page 130:Aunt Jamesina had a proper respect for the cloth even in the case of an unfledged parson.
1915, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “The Gardners’ Call”, in Anne of the Island, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, →OCLC, page 295:
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(figuratively, not-comparable) Of a thing: not yet fully developed; imperfect, incomplete, unfinished.
Alas, poor people, of an unfledged will / Most fitly expressed by such a callow voice!
1851, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows. A Poem, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, part II, stanza X, page 102:Fantasy, sheer fantasy? Perhaps! But when we think of time and of eternity, intelligence reels. The shrewdest questions that we can ask about them are perhaps falsely shaped, being but flutterings of the still unfledged human mentality.
1946, Olaf Stapledon, “The Spirit of Man Considers His Plight”, in Death into Life, [Glasgow?]: Good Press, published 2022, →OCLC:Yet they who watch your God-compelled return / May see your happy perihelion burn / Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.
1849, James Russell Lowell, “Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades”, in Poems, revised edition, volume II, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC, page 38:Beſides, it is not poſſible to give a young perſon a juſt vievv of life; he muſt have ſtruggled vvith his ovvn paſſions before he can eſtimate the force of the temptation vvhich betrayed his brother into vice. Thoſe vvho are entering life, and those vvho are departing, ſee the vvorld from ſuch very different points of vievv, that they can ſeldom think alike, unleſs the unfledged reaſon of the former never attempted a ſolitary flight.
1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Animadversions on Some of the Writers who have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1792, →OCLC, page 251:
Antonyms
full-blown · accomplished · full-on · fledged · old · adept · practiced · versed · seasoned · veteran · full-fledged · hard-bitten · qualified · hardened · knowing the ropes
Deriveds
Synonyms
new · fresh · punk · inexperienced · unfletched · unseen · featherless · unfletched · green · unexperienced · unfletched · unseasoned · green · raw · pup · callow · callow · unfeathered · experienceless · apteric · unpracticed · unfeathered · apteric · callow · featherless · strange · unversed
Translations (14)
uk неопере́ний (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · pl nieopierzony (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · el άπτερος (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · fi höyhenetön (not having feathers) · pt implume (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · ga gan cleiteacha (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · nl ongevederd (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · de (noch) nicht flügge (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · fi höyhenetön (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · de ungefiedert (not having feathers) · bg неоперен (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · ga scallta (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · ru неоперившийся (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly) · de ungefiedert (of a bird: not yet having developed its feathers and wings and become able to fly)