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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ignorant
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ In our North London fastness we are as ignorant as snowflakes of such matters.
▪ I suspect most girls now are as ignorant as I was then, because the number of victims increases steadily.
▪ Churchill was a sort of Anglican but was as ignorant about clergymen as Lloyd George.
▪ What is so fascinating is that maybe the medieval artists were just as ignorant of Latin.
blissfully
▪ I was blissfully ignorant of the whole collapse.
so
▪ Truly, I was so ignorant, I would have.
▪ Why was the church so ignorant of her own men and women?
▪ She is so ignorant of life, she might be a visitor from Mars.
totally
▪ I mean, is the fool totally ignorant?
▪ He was, for example, totally ignorant of the atomic bomb project.
▪ More important, he has met an ideal of which his regime was totally ignorant: mercy.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a crude and ignorant man
▪ I'm very ignorant about politics.
▪ I didn't like to ask him to explain more clearly because I didn't want to appear ignorant.
▪ That was an ignorant joke!
▪ There are still doctors who are ignorant of patients' rights, or who try to deny them.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But political historians are often rather ignorant of economics.
▪ Either she was woefully ignorant, or wilfully obtuse.
▪ My inquiries reveal that most of these are caused by exercise programmes devised by ignorant charlatans feeding off our need for health.
▪ Or was he just pretending to be ignorant?
▪ The thinking seems to be that many savers are too ignorant or lazy to shop around.
▪ These research subjects are presumed to be ignorant and vulnerable groups in society and almost always include students.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ignorant

Ignorant \Ig"no*rant\, n. A person untaught or uninformed; one unlettered or unskilled; an ignoramous.

Did I for this take pains to teach Our zealous ignorants to preach?
--Denham.

Ignorant

Ignorant \Ig"no*rant\, a. [F., fr. L. ignorans, -antis, p. pr. of ignorare to be ignorant. See Ignore.]

  1. Destitute of knowledge; uninstructed or uninformed; untaught; unenlightened.

    He that doth not know those things which are of use for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know besides.
    --Tillotson.

  2. Unacquainted with; unconscious or unaware; -- used with of.

    Ignorant of guilt, I fear not shame.
    --Dryden.

  3. Unknown; undiscovered. [Obs.]

    Ignorant concealment.
    --Shak.

    Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
    --Shak.

  4. Resulting from ignorance; foolish; silly.

    His shipping, Poor ignorant baubles! -- on our terrible seas, Like eggshells moved.
    --Shak.

    Syn: Uninstructed; untaught; unenlightened; uninformed; unlearned; unlettered; illiterate. -- Ignorant, Illiterate. Ignorant denotes lack of knowledge, either as to single subject or information in general; illiterate refers to an ignorance of letters, or of knowledge acquired by reading and study. In the Middle Ages, a great proportion of the higher classes were illiterate, and yet were far from being ignorant, especially in regard to war and other active pursuits.

    In such business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant More learned than the ears.
    --Shak.

    In the first ages of Christianity, not only the learned and the wise, but the ignorant and illiterate, embraced torments and death.
    --Tillotson.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ignorant

late 14c., from Old French ignorant (14c.), from Latin ignorantia, from ignorantem (nominative ignorans), present participle of ignorare "not to know, to be unacquainted; mistake, misunderstand; take no notice of, pay no attention to," from assimilated form of in- "not, opposite of" (see in- (1)) + Old Latin gnarus "aware, acquainted with" (cognates: Classical Latin noscere "to know," notus "known"), from Proto-Latin suffixed form *gno-ro-, related to gnoscere "to know" (see know).\n

\nForm influenced by Latin ignotus "unknown." Also see uncouth. Colloquial sense of "ill-mannered" first attested 1886. As a noun meaning "ignorant person" from mid-15c.

Wiktionary
ignorant

a. 1 unknowledgeable or uneducated; characterized by ignorance. 2 (context slang English) ill-mannered, crude. 3 (context obsolete English) unknown; undiscovered 4 Resulting from ignorance; foolish; silly.

WordNet
ignorant
  1. adj. lacking general education or knowledge; "an ignorant man"; "nescient of contemporary literature"; "an unlearned group incapable of understanding complex issues"; "exhibiting contempt for his unlettered companions" [syn: nescient, unenlightened, unlearned, unlettered]

  2. ignorant of the fundamentals of a given art or branch of knowledge; "ignorant of quantum mechanics"; "musically illiterate" [syn: illiterate]

  3. lacking basic knowledge; "how can someone that age be so ignorant?"; "inexperienced and new to the real world" [syn: inexperienced]

  4. used of things; lacking sense or awareness; "ignorant hope"; "fine innocent weather" [syn: innocent]

  5. lacking knowledge or skill; "unversed in the jargon of the social scientist" [syn: unversed] [ant: versed]

  6. lacking information or knowledge; "an unknowledgeable assistant" [syn: unknowledgeable, unknowing, unwitting]

Usage examples of "ignorant".

I am ignorant by what arts they could determine the lofty emperor of the Greeks to abjure the catechism of his infancy, and to persecute the religion of his fathers.

Although he was ignorant and devoid of any merit save a handsome face, he thought that an ecclesiastical career would insure his happiness, and he depended a great deal upon his preaching, for which, according to the opinion of the women with whom he was acquainted, he had a decided talent.

Ignorant priests or astrologers administered drugs, concerning the properties of which they had no knowledge, to appease the wrath of mythological deities.

The most ignorant and stupid Aenean stands in some awe of those who are learned.

Some ignorant peasants, terrified by the balloon, ran for their guns, and the poor aeronaut was treated to a shower of bullets.

After all, Zorzi reflected, he was certainly ignorant of the fact that the noble young idlers who met at the house of the Agnus Dei were playing at conspiracy and revolution.

But, alongst with this, I was also certain that he was possessed of some supernatural power, of the source of which I was wholly ignorant.

Council of the Apocrypha - and with his only superior, the pontiff himself, who, for better or worse, remained ignorant of all matters concerning the Council.

Christian was, Hopeful had taken a nap, as he so confidingly called it--a fatal nap in that arbour built by the enemy of pilgrims, just on purpose for the young and the ignorant, the inexperienced and the self-indulgent.

The Archdeacon, ignorant that this question was being asked, strolled happily on between his two acquaintances, and with them turned up the drive to Cully.

I observed that individual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in conversation with one another, and when ignorant of the fact that I was observing them, the articulate words just learned, although these were scarcely intelligible, to their own signs.

Ignorant, doubtless, of the extremely small force which had thus repulsed General Burnside, in all four thousand five hundred men, he feared that General Lee would cross the bridge, assail his left, and that the hard-fought day might end in disaster to his own army.

The ignorant Bohemians are astonished when I tell them that I regard the letter as redounding to my glory, and that if their ears were not quite so long their blame would be turned into praise.

It may seem extraordinary that Colonel Giguet, the brother of Madame Marion in whose house the society of Arcis had met for twenty-four years, and whose salon was the echo of all reports, all scandals, and all the gossip of the department of the Aube,--a good deal of it being there manufactured,--should be ignorant of facts of this nature.

Ignorant advocates and babblers have asked, in the Club of Clichy, why we occupy the territory of Venice.