unknown

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
14
Words With Friends
18
Letters
7
Pronunciation
/ʌn(ˈn)əʊn/ (UK)
See all 2 pronunciations
/ʌn(ˈn)əʊn/ (UK) · /ʌnˈnoʊn/ (US)

Definition of unknown

5 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. (postpositional, sometimes)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. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.”
    “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.”
See all 5 definitions

adj

  1. (postpositional, sometimes)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. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.”
    “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.”

noun

  1. A variable (usually x, y or z) whose value is to be found.
  2. 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?”
    “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 against the unknown.”
    “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.”
    “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.”
  3. 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”
    “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 we shall be forgiven for neglecting the saint all these years.’”

verb

  1. (form-of, participle, past)past participle of unknow

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

From Middle English *unknowen, *uniknowen, uniknowe, from Old English unġecnāwen (“unknown”), equivalent to un- + known.

Words you can make from unknown

17 playable · top: KNOWN (12 pts)

Best play known 12 points

5-letter words

1 word

4-letter words

3 words

3-letter words

5 words

2-letter words

7 words

Hooks

1 extension · 1 back

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