unwritten

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English unwriten, also unwritun and unwreton,^[2][3][4] formed from English un- + written.^[5][6][7][3] Written is the past participle of write,^[6][3] which is from Old English wrītan (“to score, outline; to write”).^[6] Old English had a similar formation, unwriten,^[5][6][2][8] and Partridge derives the word from it;^[9] Old Norse had úritinn.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not written down; left unrecorded: 1362, in the A text of Langland's Piers Plowman.^[5][10] The Middle English Dictionary quotes the B text of the poem, of about 1378, where the dreamer's name is either entered in the book of life or else left vnwriten for some wickedness.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1325–75.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Old English, unwriten already meant "not written down": the preface to the Old English Bede says Ne lét ic ðæt unwriten, "I did not leave that unwritten".^[8][11] In Middle English the word was used of things left unrecorded; from the mid-15th century it was also used of laws and customs not set down in written codes but generally understood: the OED's first example is Gilbert Hay's Buke of the Law of Armys (1456).^[5][6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "not conveyed by writing; oral; traditional", quoting Spenser on a rule of right handed down by tradition.^[12] The phrase unwritten law, law resting on custom or judicial decision rather than on statute, is quoted by Etymonline from the Century Dictionary.^[6] The literal sense "not written upon, blank" is recorded from 1542,^[5] and "not written about" from 1761.^[5] In the modern unwritten rule the word means a convention that is understood without being expressed.^[7][13]

Timeline

• 1362 – not committed to writing; unrecorded.^[5]
• 1456 – of laws and customs, not formulated in written codes; oral, traditional.^[5][10]
• 1542 – not written upon; blank.^[5]
• 1761 – not written of or about.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not written down or recorded; oral: the unwritten history of the valley.^{[14][15][13][5]}
2. Based on custom or tradition rather than on a written document; understood without being stated: an unwritten rule among the players.^{[14][13][7][3]}
3. Having no writing on it; blank: an unwritten sheet.^{[14][15][3][13]}

Related words

• write
• written

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
10. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (1960), A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th ed., with a supplement by H. D. Meritt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
15. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster