Word.ws English Dictionary

uneath

/ʌˈniːθ/

uneath adjective: not easy; hard.

Adjective

uneath

  1. (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

Adverb

uneath

  1. (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...
  2. (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]...

Antonyms of uneath

Forms of uneath

alternative form (obsolete)unneth
alternative form (obsolete)unnethe
alternative form (obsolete)unnethes
alternative form (obsolete)uneth
alternative form (obsolete)unethe
alternative form (obsolete)unneath
alternative form (obsolete)unnethis
alternative form (obsolete)unethes
alternative form (obsolete)uneathes

Origin of uneath

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.

Questions about uneath

What does uneath mean?
Uneath means not easy; hard.
What part of speech is uneath?
Uneath can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce uneath?
Uneath is pronounced /ʌˈniːθ/ (UK).

Words near uneath in the dictionary

  1. uneat
  2. uneatable
  3. uneatableness
  4. uneatably
  5. uneaten
  6. uneath
  7. uneathes
  8. uneating
  9. uneats
  10. unebbed
  11. unebbing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: uneath (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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