Ignorance
Ignorance
#491. Ignorance. -- N. ignorance, nescience, tabula rasa[Lat], crass
ignorance, ignorance crasse[Fr]; unfamiliarity, unacquaintance[obs];
unconsciousness &c. adj.; darkness, blindness; incomprehension,
inexperience, simplicity.
- unknown quantities, x, y, z.
- sealed book, terra incognita, virgin soil, unexplored ground; dark
ages.
- [Imperfect knowledge] smattering, sciolism[obs], glimmering,
dilettantism; bewilderment &c. (uncertainty) 475; incapacity.
- [Affectation of knowledge] pedantry; charlatanry, charlatism[obs];
Philister[obs], Philistine.
- V. be ignorant &c. adj.; not know &c. 490; know not, know not what,
know nothing of; have no idea, have no notion, have no conception; not have
the remotest idea; not know chalk from cheese.
- ignore, be blind to; keep in ignorance &c. (conceal) 528.
- see through a glass darkly; have a film over the eyes, have a
glimmering &c. n.; wonder whether; not know what to make of &c.
(unintelligibility) 519; not pretend to take upon, not take upon one self
to say.
- Adj. ignorant; nescient; unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised,
unapprized[obs], unwitting, unweeting|, unconscious; witless,
weetless[obs]; a stranger to; unconversant[obs].
- uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught,
uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened; Philistine;
behind the age.
- shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate;
unread, uninformed, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unbookish; empty-
headed ,dizzy, wooly-headed; pedantic;
- in the dark; benighted, belated; blinded, blindfolded; hoodwinked;
misinformed; au bout de son latin, at the end of his tether, at fault; at
sea &c. (uncertain) 475; caught tripping.
- unknown, unapprehended, unexplained, unascertained,
uninvestigated[obs], unexplored, unheard of, not perceived; concealed &c.
528; novel.
- Adv. ignorantly &c. adj.; unawares; for anything, for aught one knows;
not that one knows.
- Int. God knows, Heaven knows, the Lord knows, who knows, nobody knows.
- Phr. "ignorance never settles a question" [Disraeli]; quantum animis
erroris inest[Lat]! [Ovid]; "small Latin and less Greek" [B. Jonson]; "that
unlettered small-knowing soul" [Love's Labor's Lost]; "there is no darkness
but ignorance" [Twelfth NIght].