Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun informal An American mammoth whose fossilized skeleton was discovered in 1801

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin unknown

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word incognitum.

Examples

  • Misera est servitus ubi jus est aut vagum aut incognitum. 2nd. because an exposition of the law, publicly made, and repeatedly confirmed by the constituted authority, carries with it, by fair inference, the sanction of those who, having made the law through their legislative organ, appear, under such circumstances, to have determined its meaning through their judiciary organ.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Would an Act of Congress Be Required to Allow President Obama To Accept the Nobel Peace Prize? 2009

  • Three plant families are endemic to the hotspot, each represented by a single species: Haptanthaceae (Haptanthus hazlettii), Lacandoniaceae (Lacandonia schismatica), and Ticodendraceae (Ticodendron incognitum).

    Biological diversity in Mesoamerica 2008

  • In a letter to Lulla, Bishop of Coena, he deplores the want of books on the phenomena and works of nature, which, he says, were _omnio incognitum_ there, and asks for a book on

    Bibliomania in the Middle Ages Frederick Somner Merryweather

  • Edward Coke [50] will inform us that it is one of the genuine marks of servitude, to have the law, which is our rule of action, either concealed or precarious; "_misera est servitus ubi jus est vagum aut incognitum_."

    The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II Various 1887

  • To this case may be justly applied that important principle, misera est servitus ubi jus est aut incognitum aut vagum.

    Life Of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

  • Will it not be said, that jus est aut incognitum aut vagum? and will not the consequence be drawn, misera est servitus [420]?

    Life Of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

  • The skeleton of the mammoth (for so the incognitum has been called) bespeaks an animal of five or six times the cubic volume of the elephant, as Mons. de Buffon has admitted.

    Notes on the State of Virginia 1853

  • Bracciolini in his scornful way to Niccoli, "who has not our attainments, thought that we were equally ignorant of what he found he did not know himself" -- "Vir ille bonus, expers studiorum nostrorum, quicquid reperit ignotum sibi, id et apud nos incognitum putavit" (Ep. III 12).

    Tacitus and Bracciolini The Annals Forged in the XVth Century John Wilson Ross 1852

  • The skeleton of the mammoth (for so the incognitum has been called) bespeaks an animal of five or six times the cubit volume of the elephant, as Mons. de Buffon has admitted.

    Notes on the State of Virginia. 1826

  • 'Iste primus apud Romanos Diadema capiti innexuit; gemmisque et aurata omni veste, quod adhuc fere incognitum

    Zenobia or, the Fall of Palmyra William Ware 1824

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.