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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
unknown
I.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
hitherto unknown
▪ a species of fish hitherto unknown in the West
of unknown origin (=used to say that no one knows where, when, or how something started)
▪ an ancient folk tale of unknown origin
of unknown parentage (=nobody knows who his parents were)
▪ He was born in France in 1670 of unknown parentage.
person or persons unknown
▪ murder by person or persons unknown
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
almost
▪ In the nineteenth century such arrests were almost unknown.
▪ Pilfering, which can add millions to the cost of a modern project, was almost unknown.
▪ Eric Touchaleaume looks back more than fifty years, with twelve almost unknown works by Max Ernst.
▪ The M79 is almost unknown outside military circles.
▪ That is certainly a contributing factor, but similar conditions obtain in other countries where kidnapping is almost unknown.
▪ Fresh vegetables and fruit were almost unknown.
▪ The condition is, however, almost unknown among healthy men of the same age as those in the survey.
▪ For half a century it was almost unknown.
completely
▪ Sold to the museum by the New York conservator Mario Modestini, its early history is completely unknown.
▪ Given his statistical results, he conjectured the existence of some otherwise completely unknown feature - the genetic code.
▪ They don't want a completely unknown counsellor to come in at this time.
▪ There is nowhere in the Old World where the threat of marauding greenskins is completely unknown.
▪ There may be many different bacterial species completely unknown because they can not be cultured.
hitherto
▪ This has uncovered some interesting findings - for instance the hitherto unknown demand for 3.3V chips from desktop system designers.
▪ We are amid corruption of a hitherto unknown scale but not without some precedent.
▪ But Brindley's canal from the coal-mines at Worsley to Manchester had several features hitherto unknown.
▪ Isabel trembled, half afraid, half shocked, at such shameless, hitherto unknown longings.
▪ It now remains to ask whether there is any significance in this hitherto unknown fact.
▪ No details are given of this hitherto unknown organisation, but the platform put forward by the paper looks like pure Thatcherism.
▪ Recently a hitherto unknown phenomenon has appeared in Illela: property speculation.
▪ This meant seeking out even more diverse wines from hitherto unknown sources, which further taxed the new-found art of blending.
largely
▪ Although largely unknown in Britain, Lafaille has an impressive rock climbing curriculum vitae.
▪ But on the national level they are novices, limited specialists or largely unknown quantities.
▪ He possesses non-physical properties and energies that are still largely unknown and uncharted by traditional science.
▪ Rick Lazio, 42, a moderate from Long Island who is largely unknown statewide but carries little obvious baggage.
▪ He was largely unknown to football when last June he was introduced to Edwards, the chairman and majority shareholder of United.
▪ Tributes were largely unknown to Ford's injected Cologne V6, but it is a worthy enough trooper.
▪ Derrick Smith, remains largely unknown even on this Marine Corps base where he is stationed.
previously
▪ This special afternoon sale will put on offer an album of fifty-eight previously unknown drawings by Henry Fuseli.
▪ It was a remarkable discovery, a previously unknown chemical process that Knittle had stumbled on to.
▪ The essence of research, surely, must be the revelation of previously unknown facts.
▪ The researchers now believe they have identified the culprit: a previously unknown strain of herpes virus.
▪ Most important of all he has run down a number of performances previously unknown.
▪ But it also contained information previously unknown to either Tanimizu or Sakaida.
▪ The cause was eventually tracked down to a previously unknown bacterium, given the name Legionella pneumophila.
▪ Overnight a panic spiral of previously unknown proportions will develop.
relatively
▪ In some cultures, critical analysis of texts is relatively unknown and may, indeed, be thought offensive.
▪ McCarthy, with his unpredictability, and the relatively unknown McGovern were not his kind of candidate.
▪ Zara is relatively unknown outside Ulster so we have featured her in our Second Set series elsewhere in this issue.
▪ The critics reserved their worst words for the relatively unknown George Corraface, who plays Columbus.
▪ He was relatively unknown, but was praised by Iliescu for his grasp of the country's economic problems.
▪ It was inherent in the project that Blackeyes should be played by a relatively unknown, inexperienced actress.
▪ Part of the reason she's been relatively unknown there is that she was not a public figure.
▪ The relatively unknown signing from homespun Grimsby was elevated to star status over a week-end.
still
▪ Police are working on some leads, but the motive for the attack is still unknown.
▪ However, it is still unknown how much of that money came from Florida investors, she said.
▪ Whether only the codon 129 genotype contributes to the molecular basis of this anticipation phenomenon is still unknown.
▪ The precise cause of this serious disease is still unknown.
▪ McQueen's most fruitful period in films had been in the sixties while Dustin was still unknown outside off-Broadway.
▪ What factors determine whether the virus remains dormant or begins reproduction are still unknown.
▪ The significance of the orientation of fields in Central Veracruz is still unknown.
▪ But the nature of that involvement and the degree to which it is manifested in a given alcoholic is still unknown.
totally
▪ A father may choose to be totally unknown to both mother and child by supplying his semen to a sperm bank.
▪ On the other hand, there is the lay congregation, to whom biblical scholarship is totally unknown territory.
▪ As for Wayne Pollock and Clive Smott, they are totally unknown quantities.
▪ Not that the Soviets were totally unknown before that.
▪ The successful one was made by a couple totally unknown in Teesdale.
▪ I had already seen pictures by Popova, Klyun, and other artists who were then totally unknown.
▪ For reasons now totally unknown, people in the past had chosen to travel to this field to weigh various substances.
▪ But it's less risky than pointing to totally unknown items on a menu.
virtually
▪ They must be less common in wine-drinking regions and virtually unknown in strictly Mohammedan countries.
▪ Even more than most of his predecessors, Gorbachev was virtually unknown in the West when he came to power.
▪ Union membership is virtually unknown except for isolated technicians like film projection people.
▪ As an accurate observer of, and extensive traveller in, a virtually unknown land he was unrivalled.
▪ He was virtually unknown in the United States.
▪ Atheism is virtually unknown in pagan and rural societies, but this new rationalism will usher it into the modern world.
▪ Materialism has until recently been virtually unknown in Confucian societies.
■ NOUN
cause
▪ The stage I patient died 8 years after diagnosis from an unknown cause.
▪ They seem more like a symbol of some unknown cause than just six ounces each of chunk white packed in spring water.
▪ A baby died later from unknown causes.
factor
▪ In addition, it is possible that hypertension and obesity are linked by a common but as yet unknown factor.
▪ Research has indicated that narcoleptics have a set of genes that are triggered by unknown factors to cause narcolepsy.
▪ The unknown factor is the cost of copper.
▪ An unknown factor, analysts said, is the tribulations of the ruling Conservative government.
▪ The present study indicates that H pylori infection is not the unknown factor.
▪ The unknown factor is whether this absence will force the national selectors to look elsewhere.
▪ Its position will also depend on the whereabouts of the bridge across the river, which is another unknown factor.
number
▪ The demonstrators attacked and burned buildings and cars; the soldiers responded by opening fire, killing an unknown number of demonstrators.
▪ One teen-ager was reported killed, and an unknown number injured.
▪ Six letters at the end of 47 and an unknown number of lines below are lost.
▪ On the other hand, an unknown number of heterosexuals do.
▪ An unknown number of vaquita, probably in the hundreds, had already been lost.
▪ The conductor stated that there were 22 passengers inside the car and 33 outside, plus an unknown number of children.
▪ An unknown number of people died or were wounded in clashes with troops.
▪ As many as 200 civilians and an unknown number of military personnel died during heavy fighting between government and rebel forces.
origin
▪ We found that 20 of the estimates originated from six source studies, with one being of unknown origin.
▪ With the exception of computed tomography most radiological investigations can not identify the primary tumour in metastatic disease of unknown origin.
▪ Gorich etal found the primary site by computed tomography in 58% of 31 patients with metastatic disease of unknown origin.
▪ Since metastases of unknown origins are usually poorly differentiated the sensitivity of testing with these antibodies would also be reduced.
▪ Products of unknown origin I am surprised at just how many products show no manufacturer's address.
▪ Some patients with metastasis of unknown origin do have responsive tumours.
person
▪ On Aug. 24 the state prosecutor, Nurullo Khuvaidullayev, had been murdered by unknown persons in Dushanbe.
▪ The kindness of this unknown person was too much for Joan who broke down and wept.
▪ Joan asked Sunday Life to thank the unknown person who had taken the time to care for her son's grave.
quantity
▪ Labour and the Conservatives have pitched high profile candidates into this unknown quantity.
▪ But on the national level they are novices, limited specialists or largely unknown quantities.
▪ Here the X s are the unknown quantities.
▪ But even after redeployment, war will be the status quo in the Holy Land, peace the unknown quantity.
▪ A conceivable problem for the Solo is its price - £39,850 is a lot to pay for an unknown quantity.
▪ As an enemy, he was still very much an unknown quantity to them.
▪ Barnes was an unknown quantity, without any clear prejudice on the nuclear issue.
▪ Swales said he had a lot of flair, but admitted he was an unknown quantity.
reason
▪ Physically she had a lot more to offer than Kate, but for some unknown reason he really fancied the policewoman.
▪ In the world before Newton, events often seemed to happen for mysterious, unknown reasons.
▪ For some unknown reason it has moved eleven times.
▪ For unknown reasons, a squad of police marched into the black suburb of Brownsville.
▪ In 1919 for some unknown reason he arrived in Darlington and became landlord of the Cleaver Hotel in Skinnergate.
▪ For some unknown reason, this plan did not eventuate in a critical edition.
▪ For some unknown reason, the blinds were always drawn, giving it a depressing atmosphere.
▪ For some unknown reason, racial riots during the Depression were almost nonexistent.
territory
▪ On the other hand, there is the lay congregation, to whom biblical scholarship is totally unknown territory.
▪ The time had come to get off the fence and begin to walk into what was unknown territory.
▪ And if you venture into unknown territory, how can you avoid getting lost?
▪ With astonishing technical virtuosity, the genetics revolution is pushing out into unknown territory.
▪ He acted as the intellectual cavalry, seeking out new fields, harrying the enemy with his pen and probing unknown territory.
▪ It was a significant archaeological enterprise advancing into unknown territory in the small towns of Roman Britain.
▪ She, on the other hand, was in unknown territory.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ After they left Kathmandu they would be travelling through unknown territory.
▪ an unknown artist
▪ As an unknown author, it isn't easy to get your work published.
▪ For some unknown reason, Fred quit his job and moved to Alaska.
▪ Horn was beaten by a relatively unknown politician in the last election.
▪ Most of the stars in the movie are unknown to US audiences.
▪ She said the flowers were from an unknown admirer.
▪ The Internet has opened up a marketplace where sellers and buyers are virtually unknown to each other.
▪ The picture was painted in the 15th Century by an unknown Italian artist.
▪ The year of Gabor's birth is unknown.
▪ There are still a great many unknown insect species in the world.
▪ Until their first single, the Beatles were virtually unknown outside Hamburg and Liverpool.
▪ We met near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
▪ Yesterday the village was quite unknown, but today it's on the front page of all the newspapers.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a movie made with a cast of complete unknowns
▪ After 30 years in show business, Butler is still an unknown.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A new version is in the pipeline in which unknowns will be replaced by celebrities.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Unknown

Unknown \Un*known"\, a. Not known; not apprehended. -- Un*known"ness, n. [R.]
--Camden.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
unknown

c.1300, "strange, unfamiliar" (of persons, places), from un- (1) "not" + past participle of know. Compare Old English ungecnawen. In reference to facts, "not discovered or found out," it attested from early 14c. The noun meaning "unknown person" is recorded from 1590s; the unknown "that which is unknown" is from 1650s.

Wiktionary
unknown

a. Not known; unidentified; not well known. n. 1 (context algebra English) A variable (usually ''x'', ''y'' or ''z'') whose value is to be found. 2 Any fact or place about which nothing is known (as in the phrase "into the unknown"). 3 A person of no identity; a nonentity

WordNet
unknown
  1. adj. not known; "an unknown amount"; "an unknown island"; "an unknown writer"; "an unknown source" [ant: known]

  2. being or having an unknown or unnamed source; "a poem by an unknown author"; "corporations responsible to nameless owners"; "an unnamed donor" [syn: nameless, unidentified, unnamed]

  3. not known to exist; "things obscurely felt surged up from unsuspected depths in her"- Edith Wharton

  4. not famous or acclaimed; "an obscure family"; "unsung heroes of the war" [syn: obscure, unsung]

  5. not known before; "used many strange words"; "saw many strange faces in the crowd"; "don't let anyone unknown into the house" [syn: strange]

  6. n. an unknown and unexplored region; "they came like angels out the unknown" [syn: unknown region, terra incognita]

  7. anyone who does not belong in the environment in which they are found [syn: stranger, alien]

  8. a variable whose values are solutions of an equation [syn: unknown quantity]

Wikipedia
Unknown

Unknown or The Unknown may refer to:

Unknown (magazine)

Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknowns first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.

Campbell required his authors to avoid simplistic horror fiction and insisted that the fantasy elements in a story be developed logically: for example, Jack Williamson's " Darker Than You Think" describes a world in which there is a scientific explanation for the existence of werewolves. Similarly, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea series, about a modern American who finds himself in the worlds of various mythologies, depicts a system of magic based on mathematical logic. Other notable stories included several well-received novels by L. Ron Hubbard and short stories such as Manly Wade Wellman's "When It Was Moonlight" and Fritz Leiber's "Two Sought Adventure", the first in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series.

Unknown was forced to a bimonthly schedule in 1941 by poor sales, and cancelled in 1943 when wartime paper shortages became so acute that Campbell had to choose between turning Astounding into a bimonthly or ending Unknown. The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it was not commercially successful, and in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley it was responsible for the creation of the modern fantasy publishing genre.

Unknown (2011 film)

Unknown is a 2011 British-German-French psychological thriller action film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz, and Frank Langella. The film is based on the 2003 French novel published in English as Out of My Head, by Didier Van Cauwelaert.

Unknown (1988 anthology)

Unknown is an anthology of fantasy fiction short stories edited by Stanley Schmidt, the fifth of a number of anthologies drawing their contents from the classic magazine Unknown of the 1930s-1940s. It was first published in paperback by Baen Books in October 1988.

The book collects nine tales by various authors, together with an introduction by the editor.

Unknown (Rasputina album)

Unknown is the seventh full-length studio album from cello rock outfit Rasputina. It was released exclusively on CD through Melora Creager's website on April 10, 2015, and is unlikely to ever be released in digital format – in response to Creager's websites, social media accounts and her own computer being hacked by an identity thief.

Unknown (2006 film)

Unknown is a 2006 American mystery thriller film directed by Colombian filmmaker Simon Brand and starring Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Bridget Moynahan, Joe Pantoliano and Barry Pepper about a group of men kidnapped and locked in a factory with no memory of how they arrived there. Piecing together information around them, they realize that some were kidnapped and some were the kidnappers. They decide they must work together to figure out how to get away before the gang that captured them returns.

The film was previewed before a theater audience for the first time in New York City on December 13, 2005.

Usage examples of "unknown".

The aspect of the whole was abnormally life-like, and the more subtly fearful because its source was so totally unknown.

To her all the wreckage of the slums, all the woe lying beneath gilded life, all the abominations, all the tortures that remain unknown, were carried.

In this persuasion certain of the Aztec priests practised complete abscission or entire discerption of the virile parts, and a mutilation of females was not unknown similar to that immemorially a custom in Egypt.

But to live mechanised and cut off within the motion of the will, to live as an entity absolved from the unknown, that is shameful and ignominious.

If this unknown acidification agent can be created artificially there will be no more need of males.

After much consideration, therefore, she resolved to go early in the morning to that lady, and endeavour to see her, unknown to Sophia, and to acquaint her with the whole affair.

We entertained no doubt that everything had been arranged by Heaven to get us acquainted, and to fire us both, even unknown to ourselves, with love for each other.

Nitroso Dye-stuffs -- Nitro Dye-stuffs -- Azo Dye-stuffs -- Substantive Cotton Dye-stuffs -- Azoxystilbene Dye-stuffs -- Hydrazones -- Ketoneimides -- Triphenylmethane Dye-stuffs -- Rosolic Acid Dye-stuffs -- Xanthene Dye-stuffs -- Xanthone Dye-stuffs -- Flavones -- Oxyketone Dye-stuffs -- Quinoline and Acridine Dye-stuffs -- Quinonimide or Diphenylamine Dye-stuffs -- The Azine Group: Eurhodines, Safranines and Indulines -- Eurhodines -- Safranines -- Quinoxalines -- Indigo -- Dye-stuffs of Unknown Constitution -- Sulphur or Sulphine Dye stuffs -- Development of the Artificial Dye-stuff Industry -- The Natural Dye-stuffs -- Mineral Colours -- Index.

Farleyfile system would break down if I attempted to mix with crowds, not to mention the unknown hazards of the Actionist goon squads--what I would babble with a minim dose of neodexocaine in the forebrain none of us liked to think about, me least of all.

Farleyfile system would break down if I attempted to mix with crowds, not to mention the unknown hazards of the Actionist goon squads-what I would babble with a minim dose of neodexocaine in the forebrain none of us liked to think about, me least of all.

It may happen that with an unknown ore the first assay will be more or less unsatisfactory: but from it the necessity for adding more or less flour will be learnt, and a second assay, with the necessary modification of the charge, should give a good result.

Sometimes personal messages were forwarded in multiple copies, by regular interstellar couriers, the service sometimes duplicating and reduplicating the message without reading it, and sending copies on to different places, as often happened when the exact location of the addressee was unknown.

Arguments that may now be adduced to prove that the first eight Amendments were concealed within the historic phrasing of the Fourteenth Amendment were not unknown at the time of its adoption.

Heinlein was not unknown to me when he appeared in the offices of the Aeronautical Materials Laboratory of the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia in early 1942.

If I were the more agile jumper Hovan Du far outclassed me in climbing, with the result that he reached the rail and was clambering over while my eyes were still below the level of the deck, which was, perhaps, a fortunate thing for me since, by chance, I had elected to gain the deck directly at a point where, unknown to me, one of the crew of the ship was engaged with the grappling hooks.