unknown
Not known; unidentified; not well known.
Adjective
- Not known; unidentified; not well known.
- The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs....
- I suspect that this large and complex military railway system, shrouded in official secrecy for most of its operational life, remains unknown to many people. - 2022 January 12, Chris Hegg, “The secret railway in the...
Synonyms: anonymous unfamiliar uncharted undiscovered unexplored unidentified unnamed unrecognized unrevealed unascertained obscure unsung
Antonyms: well-known famous known
Origin
From Middle English *unknowen, *uniknowen, uniknowe, from Old English unġecnāwen (“unknown”), equivalent to un- + known.
Forms
Synonyms
ignote knownless strange obscure unascertained unapprehended undiscovered unexplained unfamiliar uninvestigated unknown unrecognized unrevealed
Antonyms
ascertained familiar famous known recognizable recognized well-known
Hyponyms
Related
Derived
as yet unknown as-yet-unknown parts unknown person unknown unknown known unknownly unknown number unknown quantity unknown unknown
Noun
- 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.
- Had God walked close beside her into the unknown? - 1957, Ethel Erford Hewitt, Into the Unknown: An Historical Novel, page 351:
- I think I learned more from my family than they did from me in the brief idyllic time we spent together. None of them much more than a mile from home, they carried the aura of a close-knit community as a shield against...
- 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. - 2003 [2002], Donald Rumsfeld, edited by Hart...
- A person of no identity; a nonentity.
- How does it feel, / how does it feel? / To be on your own, / with no direction home / A complete unknown, / like a rolling stone - 1965, Bob Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone”, in Bob Dylan (lyrics), Highway 61 Revisited...
- Khaleque, the landowner, who had contributed most of the money needed to transform the neglected burial-place of an unknown into a mazar, masked his pride and pleasure with difficulty. He solemnly declared: ‘Perhaps now...
Forms
Derived
Verb
- past participle of unknow