Skip to main content
unstung

unstung

1 5.8
Not hurt by an insect or animal that can sting
  • adjective
  • /ʌnˈstʌŋ/
: sin picaduras
  • The insect crawled on his arm, but he was lucky to be unstung by its needle-like barbs.

Examples

  • It stumbled out lost And without a pause, unstung as I was Still, I stomped it I thought there was no paved street worthy Of your perfect Scandinavian feet While my crooked Chinese fingers groped The machinery of your throat

  • As time passed and I remained unstung, I treated them as familiars.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • Despite the buzzing bees around her, she remained unstung during the picnic.

  • As he explored the garden, he was grateful to have stayed unstung by the wasps swarming nearby.

Antonyms

12 4.7

Feeling hurt and angry because someone treated you badly

Surface Forms

unstung positive

Morphology

unstung = stung (transparent) = un + stung

A regular negation of the past participle 'stung' with productive prefix 'un-' yields the literal meaning 'not having been stung'.

Etymology

Unstung begins with un- ('not') and ends with stung, the past form of sting. So unstung simply means 'not stung', which is why we use it for a person or thing that has not been hurt by an insect or animal that stings.