"unknow" meaning in English

See unknow in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: unknows [present, singular, third-person], unknowing [participle, present], unknew [past], unknown [participle, past]
Etymology: From un- + know. Etymology templates: {{prefix|en|un|know}} un- + know Head templates: {{en-verb|unknows|unknowing|unknew|unknown}} unknow (third-person singular simple present unknows, present participle unknowing, simple past unknew, past participle unknown)
  1. To undo the process of knowing, to lose knowledge of something.

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "un",
        "3": "know"
      },
      "expansion": "un- + know",
      "name": "prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From un- + know.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "unknows",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "unknowing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "unknew",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "unknown",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "unknows",
        "2": "unknowing",
        "3": "unknew",
        "4": "unknown"
      },
      "expansion": "unknow (third-person singular simple present unknows, present participle unknowing, simple past unknew, past participle unknown)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms prefixed with un-",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, William Joseph Jackson, Heaven's fractal net: retrieving lost visions in the humanities: Volume 1, page 205:",
          "text": "To awaken the conscious self to the principle of the whole or Tao one needs to forget oneself, so that in knowing one unknows.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 February 3, Roxane Gay, “My Co-Worker’s Baby Photo Gallery Put Me Over the Edge”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "You clearly care about this employee’s well-being and want to be supportive. Even though you can’t unknow what you saw on TikTok, this is not your problem to solve.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To undo the process of knowing, to lose knowledge of something."
      ],
      "id": "en-unknow-en-verb-AzSMVoT1",
      "links": [
        [
          "undo",
          "undo"
        ],
        [
          "know",
          "know"
        ],
        [
          "knowledge",
          "knowledge"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unknow"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "un",
        "3": "know"
      },
      "expansion": "un- + know",
      "name": "prefix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From un- + know.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "unknows",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "unknowing",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "unknew",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "unknown",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "unknows",
        "2": "unknowing",
        "3": "unknew",
        "4": "unknown"
      },
      "expansion": "unknow (third-person singular simple present unknows, present participle unknowing, simple past unknew, past participle unknown)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English terms prefixed with un-",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, William Joseph Jackson, Heaven's fractal net: retrieving lost visions in the humanities: Volume 1, page 205:",
          "text": "To awaken the conscious self to the principle of the whole or Tao one needs to forget oneself, so that in knowing one unknows.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 February 3, Roxane Gay, “My Co-Worker’s Baby Photo Gallery Put Me Over the Edge”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "You clearly care about this employee’s well-being and want to be supportive. Even though you can’t unknow what you saw on TikTok, this is not your problem to solve.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To undo the process of knowing, to lose knowledge of something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "undo",
          "undo"
        ],
        [
          "know",
          "know"
        ],
        [
          "knowledge",
          "knowledge"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "unknow"
}

Download raw JSONL data for unknow meaning in English (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (e4a2c88 and 4230888). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.