Uneath comes from Old English unēaþe ('not easily, with difficulty'), from un- ('not') + ēaþe ('easily, readily'), from Proto-Germanic *anþijaz. Now archaic. The historical chain includes Old English unēaþe and Old English ēaþe. The quoted older senses, "not easily, with difficulty", "not", and "easily, readily", supply the semantic anchors for uneath. The formation is best read as borrowed: the word uneath carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a adv, "with difficulty; scarcely (archaic)". Related English forms include eath. The result is a adv and adj whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.