unquiet

From un- +‎ quiet.

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪət

unquiet (comparative unquieter, superlative unquietest)

1. Uneasy and restless; unable to settle.

   an unquiet mind

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, , →OCLC, Canto V:

     But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
     ⁠A use in measured language lies;
     ⁠The sad mechanic exercise,
     Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

2. Causing or associated with unease or restlessness.

   an unquiet night

   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First Part , 2nd edition, part 1, London: Richard Iones, , published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene ii:

     Madam Zenocrate, may I preſume
     To know the cauſe of theſe vnquiet fits:
     That worke such trouble to your woonted reſt:

   • 1834, L E L, chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. , volume II, London: Richard Bentley, , (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 202:

     Wearied out, Francesca at once fell asleep—a slumber which would have been broken by anxiety, could she have known the feverish restlessness which kept Guido wakeful on his unquiet pillow, listening—and dreary it was to listen through the night—to the distant dash of the waves, as they rose beneath the loud and sweeping wind.

   • 1925, F Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 1, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC:

     Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.

unquiet (third-person singular simple present unquiets, present participle unquieting, simple past and past participle unquieted)

1. (now rare) To disturb, disquiet.
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt  (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Acts:

     Butt the unbelevinge iewes, steryd uppe and unquyeted the myndes off the gentyles agaynste the brethren.

   • 1649, Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury, The Life and Raigne of King Henry VIII:

     they were greatly troubled, and unquieted