unworth

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English unworth, unwurth, equivalent to un- +‎ worth.

Noun

unworth (uncountable)

1. Unworthiness; unworthliness; worthlessness.
   • 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets‎^[1]:

     Woe to the People that no longer venerates, as the emblem of God himself, the aspect of Human Worth; that no longer knows what human worth and unworth is!

   • 1917, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Copper Streak Trail‎^[2]:

     As the lawyer unfolded his plan the partner-clerk, as a devotee of cunning, found himself convicted of comparative unworth; with every sentence he deported himself less like Pelman the partner, shrank more and more to Joey the devil clerk.

   • 1989, Richard Paul Janaro, Thelma C. Altshuler, The art of being human: the humanities as a technique for living:

     Feeling a sense of unworth, we kill ourselves in a number of ways.

Adjective

unworth (comparative more unworth, superlative most unworth)

1. (obsolete) unworthy
   • 1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), John Milton, Tetrachordon: Expositions upon the Foure Chief Places in Scripture, which Treat of Mariage, or Nullities in Mariage. […], London: [s.n.], →OCLC:

     Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary , nor unworth the noting ; but I undertook not a general comment

Etymology 2

From Middle English unworth, unwurth, from Old English unweorþ, unweorþe (“unworthy, poor, mean, of low estate, worthless, contemptible, ignoble”), equivalent to un- +‎ worth.

Adjective

unworth (not comparable)

1. (rare) Not worth; not deserving of.
   • 1894, Paul Leicester Ford, The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him‎^[3]:

     This was rather pleasant, for she had to give Peter her hand, and so life became less unworth living to Peter.

   • 1916, John Lang, Jean Lang, Stories of the Border Marches‎^[4]:

     That would be something not unworth boasting about--that he, a sort of eighteenth-century David, should slay this modern Goliath.