UNMERITED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unmerited mean? 

• UNMERITED (adjective)
  The adjective UNMERITED has 2 senses:

1. not merited or deserved

2. not merited

  Familiarity information: UNMERITED used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNMERITED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not merited or deserved

Context example:

received an unmerited honorary degree

Similar:

gratuitous (without cause)

undeserved (not deserved or earned)

Antonym:

merited (properly deserved)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not merited

Context example:

unmerited treatment of a potentially fine subject

Similar:

unworthy (lacking in value or merit)

 Context examples 

All this time I was working at Murdstone and Grinby's in the same common way, and with the same common companions, and with the same sense of unmerited degradation as at first.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

'Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

There, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any severe reproach.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Once it had, by an opening undesigned and unmerited, led him into the way of happiness.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

In such a party, Harriet would be rather a dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of unmerited punishment.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Mama is blameless, she went on, of having ever urged you for herself, and she is blameless in intention every way, I am sure,—but when I saw how many importunate claims were pressed upon you in my name; how you were traded on in my name; how generous you were, and how Mr. Wickfield, who had your welfare very much at heart, resented it; the first sense of my exposure to the mean suspicion that my tenderness was bought—and sold to you, of all men on earth—fell upon me like unmerited disgrace, in which I forced you to participate.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)