UNWRITTEN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Unwritten

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/ənrˈɪtən/ Listen

adjective

Unwritten adj.

Not written; not reduced to writing; oral; as, unwritten agreements.

Containing no writing; blank; as, unwritten paper.

Unwritten doctrines (Theol.), such doctrines as have been handed down by word of mouth; oral or traditional doctrines.

Unwritten law. That part of the law of England and of the United States which is not derived from express legislative enactment, or at least from any enactment now extant and in force as such. This law is now generally contained in the reports of judicial decisions. See Common law, under Common.

Unwritten laws, such laws as have been handed down by tradition or in song. Such were the laws of the early nations of Europe.

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Etymology of 'Unwritten'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Unwritten" Quotes from Famous Books

... this epic of Suomi, descending unwritten from the mythical age to the present day, kept alive from generation to generation by minstrels, or song-men, is regarded as one of the most precious contributions to the literature of the world, made since the time of Milton and ...

— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... alike) painfully pshaw-ing over some new and uncut barley sugar in rime, which a man in the street asked us if we had read, or it may be some learned lucubration about the site of Troy by some one we chanced to meet at dinner. It is an unwritten chapter in the history of the human mind, how this literary prurience after new print unmans us for the enjoyment of the old songs chanted forth in the sunrise of human imagination. To ask a man or woman who spends half a lifetime in sucking magazines and ...

— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)--Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible in its attempt to say nothing—so that its stiff cerement of formality seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten ...

— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... although these have all been made the subjects of wide discussion of late, both in America and Great Britain, and have, I think, a bearing under the circumstances on his character and genius. It is an unwritten tragedy that will doubtless always remain unwritten. I will but mention an eloquent appeal of the Scotch poet, Robert Buchanan, published in London in March, 1876, eulogizing and defending the American ...

— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... closely akin to that which moves some men in our time to deny or limit the past, and reject the results of any investigation which tend to enlarge it. Rational inquiry constantly forces upon us the suggestion that there was more in the unwritten history of the human race than our inherited modes of thinking have allowed us to suppose, and that the beginning of civilization is far more ancient than our long accepted theories of antiquity ...

— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

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