ill-nurtured

Matteo lifted his eyes to the matrix of seeming disorder, workers and visitors seething beyond the buildings lining the basins, and wondered at the venerable sow, ill-nurtured and slack with inanition, who yet could produce robust litters on demand.

Asimov's Science Fiction 2004

“It is a currish proposal — thus to thrust thyself upon my private matters,” replied Foster; “but thou wert ever an ill-nurtured whelp.”

Kenilworth 2004

With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, as on an altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the fuel in whose dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured sacrifice of his spirit.

Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875 Various

Others urge that it is wrong to check the native races on the ground that they are normally ill-nurtured and the slaughter of wild animals is their only means of obtaining a supply of protein to supplement a cereal diet.

Wild Animal Life in the British Empire 1931

The latter is supposed to be one of the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous, void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.

Across China on Foot Edwin John Dingle 1926

Moreover, a cold thaw set in, and the house grew icy, so that they moved about it with chattering teeth, and at night, ill-nurtured as they were, could scarce keep the life in them beneath all the coverings which they had.

The Lady of Blossholme Henry Rider Haggard 1890

Y '' ave been ill-nurtured, methinks, and yet ye have the makings of some good, and, beyond all question, saved me from the river.

The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

The poor little victim who first sees the light in the Borough or Shadwell, or in the noxious alleys of our reeking industrial towns, receives foul air, mere atmospheric garbage, into his lungs; he becomes thin-blooded, his unwholesome pallor witnesses to his weakness of vitality, his muscles are atrophied, and even his hair is ragged, lustreless, ill-nurtured.

The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions Joints In Our Social Armour James Runciman 1871

The man coming up the lane, with a savage dog, was the father of the ill-nurtured children.

Driven Back to Eden Edward Payson Roe 1863

She knew enough of the manners and customs, the looks and the intelligence of the children of educated parents, to be aware that there were "makings" in those who were born heirs to developed intellects, and the grace that comes of discipline, very different from the "makings" to be found in the "voolish" descendants of ill-nurtured and uneducated generations.

Jan of the Windmill Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing 1863