unmeritedadj.

1581 E. Hutchins Davids Sling against Great Goliah 159 This, ô Lord, is an vnmerited benefite, for the which after my bounden dutie, I giue thee hartie thanks.

1648 H. Hexham Groot Woorden-boeck Onbedient, vndeserved, or Vnmerited.

1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost xii. 278 Favour unmerited by me, who sought Forbidd'n knowledge. View more context for this quotation

1711 Spectator No. 77. ⁋5 Those Nods of Approbation which I never bestow unmerited.

1740 S. Richardson Pamela II. 163 This, Sir,..is all Goodness, unmerited on my Side.

1815 W. Wordsworth White Doe of Rylstone ii. 35 The excess Of an unmerited distress.

1889 in Retrospect Med. 102 33 Years ago I remember getting a good deal of quite unmerited credit.

1926 W. Lewis Art of being Ruled v. i. 138 The tone of studied contempt on the one hand, or despairing abuse on the other..is unmerited probably.

1999 Camping Mag. Apr. 29/1 It was Conan Doyle who..painted the picture of Dartmoor as a dark, forbidding place, and gave its bogs their largely unmerited reputation as man-swallowers.

1659 R. Boyle Some Motives & Incentives to Love of God 70 The Freenesse or unmeritednesse of God's love.

1777 Gibbons's Mourning Saint among Willows (rev. ed.) xxxii. 46 O I ring forth the generosity of his heart, the sovereignty of his unspeakable love, the unmeritedness of his grace.

1985 C. Sherman Reading Voltaire's Contes ii. 95 They make the reader dwell with him on the meaning to be derived from the elemental sense of experience, on the unmeritedness and absurdity of events.