unmean

comparative more unmean · superlative most unmean

1. rareNot mean (all senses).

   They are so unmean, so just and so kind.

   2014, Martin Bowman, Battlefield Bombers: Deep Sea Attack, page 8

   3 more examples

   The Age of Innocence is based on an Edith Wharton novel and set in the very unmean streets of upper-crust New York, circa 1870.

   1999, Martin Scorsese, Peter Brunette, Martin Scorsese: Interviews, page 188

   But this whole time, all you've been doing is judging me, making not unmean comments about my new friends, about the guys I'm dating, about how much I drink, go out—everything—as if you don't approve.

   2008, Sherri Rifkin, LoveHampton, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 247

   So the tightrope these unmean men must walk drew taut.

   2010, John Lennard, Of Sex and Faerie: Further Essays on Genre Fiction, page 65

   Synonyms: kind, agreeable, generous

present singular third person unmeans · participle present unmeaning · participle past unmeant · past unmeant

1. rareTo reverse, cancel, or negate what was intentionally communicated.

   I'd meant everything I ever said to her, and I didn't know how to unmean it.

   2015, CD Reiss, Shuttergirl

   2 more examples

   The play works to unmean meaning by a double dislocation. It uses expectation to undermine expectation both of everyday 'reality' and of theatrical genre.

   2007, Ralph Yarrow, Franc Chamberlain, Sacred Theatre, page 114

   ... just as Steinian non-sense derives its power to “unmean” from the rigidly semantic context of most discursive forms

   2011, Maria Damon, Postliterary America: From Bagel Shop Jazz to Micropoetries, page 83

   Synonyms: take back, walk back, withcall