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Permanent link for this word: nescient

Jun 23, 2010

This week's theme
Words to describe people

This week's words
weathercock
persnickety
nescient
bromidic
esurient

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

nescient

PRONUNCIATION:

(NESH-uhnt, NESH-ee-uhnt, NES-ee-uhnt)

MEANING:

adjective: Lacking knowledge or awareness.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin ne- (not) + scire (to know). Ultimately from the Indo-European root skei- (to cut or split) that has also given us schism, ski, shin, science, conscience, nice, scienter, adscititious, and sciolist.

USAGE:

"The most interesting character development occurs in Zeta-Jones's transformation from nescient wife to underground businesswoman as she tries to preserve her husband's business."
Matthew Hunt; Traffic; Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia); Jan 12, 2001.

See more usage examples of nescient in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

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