different between unfledged vs unacquainted

English

Etymology

un- +? fledged

Adjective

unfledged (not comparable)

1. Not having feathers; (of a bird) not yet having developed its wings and feathers and become able to fly.

   Synonym: callow

   Antonym: fledged

   • c. 1609, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, Act III, Scene 3^[1]

     […] we, poor unfledged,

     Have never wing’d from view o’ the nest, nor know not

     What air’s from home.

   • 1818, Jane Austen, Persuasion, Chapter 21,^[2]

     “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.”

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “The Bean-Field,”^[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.

   • 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part 2, Chapter 28,^[4]

     “Boy and girl. Aren’t they beauties?” said the proud papa, beaming upon the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels.

2. (figuratively) Not yet fully grown or developed; not yet mature.
   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act I, Scene 2,^[5]

     Temptations have since then been born to’s; for

     In those unfledged days was my wife a girl;

     Your precious self had then not cross’d the eyes

     Of my young play-fellow.

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Section 5.5,^[6]

     Besides, it is not possible to give a young person a just view of life; he must have struggled with his own passions before he can estimate the force of the temptation which betrayed his brother into vice. Those who are entering life, and those who are departing, see the world from such very different points of view, that they can seldom think alike, unless the unfledged reason of the former never attempted a solitary flight.

   • 1848, James Russell Lowell, “Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades” in Poems. Second Series, Cambridge: G. Nichols, p. 38,^[7]

     Yet they who watch your God-compelled return

     May see your happy perihelion burn

     Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.

   • 1946, Olaf Stapledon, Death into Life, Chapter 4,^[8]

     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.

3. (figuratively) Inexperienced, like a tyro or novice.

   Antonym: experienced

   • 1898, Gertrude Atherton, The Californians, Book I, Chapter 23,^[9]

     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.

   • 1915, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island, Chapter 37,^[10]

     Aunt Jamesina had a proper respect for the cloth even in the case of an unfledged parson.

English

Etymology

From un- +? acquainted.

Adjective

unacquainted (comparative more unacquainted, superlative most unacquainted)

1. Not acquainted, unfamiliar (with someone or something).
   • 1563, Arthur Golding (translator), The Historie of Leonard Aretine concerning the Warres betwene the Imperialles and the Gothes for the Possession of Italy, London: George Bucke, Book 1, Chapter 10, p. 38,^[1]

     The Romains vnacquainted with such perills, wold not endure the hasard of the siege.

   • 1705, William Dampier, Voyages and Descriptions, London: James Knapton, Volume 2, “Voyages to the Bay of Campeachy,” Chapter 1, p. 26,^[2]

     […] from our Main-top we saw the Islands to the Southward of us, and being unacquainted, knew not whether we might find among them a Channel to pass through […]

   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, Chapter 20,^[3]

     “ […] Were my mother to see you—to know you, I am sure she would approve; but you are unacquainted personally, and the ancient feud between the families—”

   • 1970, Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1971, Chapter 1, p. 11,^[4]

     To commonplace actions he brought a special pedantic awkwardness. In Poland, France, England, students, young gentlemen of his time, had been unacquainted with kitchens. Now he did things that cooks and maids had once done.

2. (obsolete) Not usual; unfamiliar; strange.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, London: William Ponsonbie, Book 1, Canto 5, p. 66,^[5]

     Who when she saw Duessa sunny bright,

     Adornd with gold and iewels shining cleare,

     She greatly grew amazed at the sight,

     And th’vnacquainted light began to feare:

   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, King John, Act V, Scene 2,^[6]

     […] [we] fill up

     Her enemies’ ranks,—I must withdraw and weep

     Upon the spot of this enforced cause,—

     To grace the gentry of a land remote,

     And follow unacquainted colours here?

Translations

References

• unacquainted in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• unacquainted in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.