unknown
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From un- + known, past participle of know. Compare Old English ungecnawen.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
unknown (comparative more unknown, superlative most unknown)
- (sometimes postpositive) Not known; unidentified; not well known.
- 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 4, in The Celebrity:
- The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.
- Synonyms: anonymous, unfamiliar, uncharted, undiscovered, unexplored, unidentified, unnamed, unrecognized, unrevealed, unascertained, obscure, unsung
- Antonyms: well-known, famous, known
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
not known
|
|
Noun[edit]
unknown (plural unknowns)
- (algebra) A variable (usually x, y or z) whose value is to be found.
- Any thing, place, or situation about which nothing is known; an unknown fact or piece of information.
- 1957, Ethel Erford Hewitt, Into the Unknown: An Historical Novel, page 351:
- Had God walked close beside her into the unknown?
- 2003 [2002], Donald Rumsfeld, Hart Seely, editor, Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld:
- As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know.
- 2020 April 9, Ian Boyd, “We practised for a pandemic, but didn’t brace”, in Nature, volume 580, number 7802, page 9:
- The other priority is getting people to respond well to interventions, especially changes to routine. This is one of the biggest unknowns in these scenarios, and yet compliance can be the most crucial factor in determining whether an intervention works.
- A person of no identity; a nonentity
- 1965, Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone
- How does it feel
- To be on your own
- With no direction home
- Like a complete unknown
- Like a rolling stone?
- 1965, Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone
Translations[edit]
variable
|
fact or place
|
|
person of no identity
|
|
Verb[edit]
unknown
- past participle of unknow
Categories:
- English words prefixed with un-
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Algebra
- English non-lemma forms
- English verb forms
- English adjectives commonly used as postmodifiers
- en:Uncertainty