Roget's Thesaurus: Entry 491 (Ignorance)

Make sure you have read the copyright information for this Project Gutenberg thesaurus, as well as the description of the thesaurus.

#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].