Word.ws English Dictionary

unhackneyed

unhackneyed adjective: unpractised, inexperienced.

Adjective

unhackneyed (not comparable)

  1. Unpractised, inexperienced.
    • Unus'd to the foppery of love, he is negligent of the little duties expected from a lover—but being unhackney'd in the paſſion, his affection is ardent and ſincere; and as it engroſſes his vvhole ſoul, he expects every thought and emotion of his miſtreſs to move in uniſon vvith his.1775 January 17 (first performance), [Richard Brinsley Sheridan], The Rivals, a Comedy. […], London: […] John Wilkie, […], published 1775, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 9
    • A very short time served to prove how worthy he was both of their love and esteem; the manly sincerity, the professional simplicity and openness of his heart, with the sweetness of his cheerful temper, and that novel way of looking at the world peculiar to the noble-spirited and unhackneyed seaman...1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 276
  2. Not worn-out through overuse; not hackneyed.
    • UNUSUAL LOCOMOTIVES. By E. F. Carter. Frederick Muller Ltd. 21s. […] This book is particularly disappointing as this is an un-hackneyed subject upon which a reliable book would be most welcome.1960 August, “New Reading on Railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 512

Origin of unhackneyed

From un- + hackneyed.

Words formed from unhackneyed

Questions about unhackneyed

What does unhackneyed mean?
Unhackneyed means unpractised, inexperienced.
What part of speech is unhackneyed?
Unhackneyed is an adjective.

Words near unhackneyed in the dictionary

  1. unhabituating
  2. unhable
  3. unhackable
  4. unhacked
  5. unhackled
  6. unhackneyed
  7. unhackneyedness
  8. unhad
  9. unhaemolysed
  10. unhafted
  11. unhaggling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unhackneyed (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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Cite this entry: “unhackneyed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unhackneyed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.