See unknown quantity in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for unknown quantity meaning in English (3.8kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "unknown quantities",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "unknown quantity (plural unknown quantities)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "known quantity"
},
{
"word": "household name"
}
],
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "49 51",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1907, The Bookman, volume 25, page 166",
"text": ". . . the Evening Post of this city to refer to him recently as \"the young Belgian painter,\" and to the general public he is an unknown quantity.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1963 June, “Beyond the Channel: France: High-power diesels”, in Modern Railways, page 417",
"text": "The big French diesel is something of an unknown quantity, whereas many French-built electric locomotives developing 3,000 h.p. and more have been well proved in service.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1971, Lyndon Johnson, “\"I feel like I have already been here a year\"”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18",
"text": "In spite of more than three decades of public service, I knew I was an unknown quantity to many of my countrymen and to much of the world when I assumed office.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1982 September 22, Henry Tanner, “Gemayel Brothers Assessed in Syria”, in New York Times, retrieved 2016-01-09",
"text": "Amin Gemayel, it is felt here, is an unknown quantity and it is impossible to predict how he will act.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2015 December 6, “Congratulations on 10 years, David Cameron - but don't rest on your laurels”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2016-01-09",
"text": "[H]e was still an unknown quantity – a young, untested figure.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person or thing whose nature or value is a mystery."
],
"id": "en-unknown_quantity-en-noun-sigTiQK8",
"links": [
[
"nature",
"nature"
],
[
"value",
"value"
],
[
"mystery",
"mystery"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A person or thing whose nature or value is a mystery."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "49 51",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2012 January 1, Richard N. Aufmann, Joanne Lockwood, Beginning Algebra, Cengage Learning, page 77",
"text": "Many of the applications of mathematics require that you identify an unknown quantity, assign a variable to that quantity, and then attempt to express another unknown quantity in terms of that variable.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016, Steve Pace, The Projects of Skunk Works: 75 Years of Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs, Voyageur Press, page 145",
"text": "So promising was the Skunk Works' stealth cruise missile offering, the USAF ordered an unknown quantity of these missiles under a highly classified program dubbed Senior Prom.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see unknown, quantity."
],
"id": "en-unknown_quantity-en-noun-3inoIfvZ",
"links": [
[
"unknown",
"unknown#English"
],
[
"quantity",
"quantity#English"
]
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "11 89",
"word": "quesitive"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "11 89",
"word": "blank canvas"
},
{
"_dis1": "11 89",
"word": "enigma"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-unknown quantity.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d5/En-au-unknown_quantity.ogg/En-au-unknown_quantity.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/En-au-unknown_quantity.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "unknown quantity"
}
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with audio links"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "unknown quantities",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "unknown quantity (plural unknown quantities)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "quesitive"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "known quantity"
},
{
"word": "household name"
}
],
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1907, The Bookman, volume 25, page 166",
"text": ". . . the Evening Post of this city to refer to him recently as \"the young Belgian painter,\" and to the general public he is an unknown quantity.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1963 June, “Beyond the Channel: France: High-power diesels”, in Modern Railways, page 417",
"text": "The big French diesel is something of an unknown quantity, whereas many French-built electric locomotives developing 3,000 h.p. and more have been well proved in service.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1971, Lyndon Johnson, “\"I feel like I have already been here a year\"”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18",
"text": "In spite of more than three decades of public service, I knew I was an unknown quantity to many of my countrymen and to much of the world when I assumed office.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1982 September 22, Henry Tanner, “Gemayel Brothers Assessed in Syria”, in New York Times, retrieved 2016-01-09",
"text": "Amin Gemayel, it is felt here, is an unknown quantity and it is impossible to predict how he will act.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2015 December 6, “Congratulations on 10 years, David Cameron - but don't rest on your laurels”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2016-01-09",
"text": "[H]e was still an unknown quantity – a young, untested figure.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person or thing whose nature or value is a mystery."
],
"links": [
[
"nature",
"nature"
],
[
"value",
"value"
],
[
"mystery",
"mystery"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) A person or thing whose nature or value is a mystery."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2012 January 1, Richard N. Aufmann, Joanne Lockwood, Beginning Algebra, Cengage Learning, page 77",
"text": "Many of the applications of mathematics require that you identify an unknown quantity, assign a variable to that quantity, and then attempt to express another unknown quantity in terms of that variable.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2016, Steve Pace, The Projects of Skunk Works: 75 Years of Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs, Voyageur Press, page 145",
"text": "So promising was the Skunk Works' stealth cruise missile offering, the USAF ordered an unknown quantity of these missiles under a highly classified program dubbed Senior Prom.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see unknown, quantity."
],
"links": [
[
"unknown",
"unknown#English"
],
[
"quantity",
"quantity#English"
]
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-unknown quantity.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/d/d5/En-au-unknown_quantity.ogg/En-au-unknown_quantity.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/En-au-unknown_quantity.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "blank canvas"
},
{
"word": "enigma"
}
],
"word": "unknown quantity"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). 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.