Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Absence of knowledge or awareness; ignorance.
- n. Agnosticism.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The state of not knowing; lack of knowledge; ignorance.
Wiktionary
- n. The absence of knowledge; ignorance, especially of orthodox beliefs.
- n. philosophy The doctrine that nothing is actually knowable.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Want of knowledge; ignorance; agnosticism.
WordNet 3.0
- n. ignorance (especially of orthodox beliefs)
Etymologies
- From Latin nescientia, from the present participle of nescire. (Wiktionary)
- Late Latin nescientia, from Latin nesciēns, nescient-, present participle of nescīre, to be ignorant : ne-, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + scīre, to know; see skei- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“However, your "Why cant people just understand some people just arent right in the head?" represents a particularly useless flavor of active nescience.”
Venezuela bans violent video games: a first-person guest essay - Boing Boing
“The narrator strives to distinguish himself from those who exhibit nescience in relation to the attack.”
“What is originally just foolishness, stupidity, or nescience becomes something much more morally serious when you double down on it.”
“It will fail because of exactly the IMHO nescience and disinformation pervading most of the movie-going public.”
Leaked: MGM Internal Memo On Valkyrie’s Breathtaking Buzz Surge | /Film
“My friends, the world is awash with insane rhetoric, a rhetoric that is spewed and conjured by half-baked holy men referencing centuries-old texts that were written during times of incalculable nescience.”
Lionel: Obama in Cairo: The Immutable Sapience of the Good Book(s)
“The catastrophe is the apparent enveloping nescience at the configuration of the Supreme Court and basic math.”
“And hearken to the silence of the courtiers and grant-grubbers of Establishment Conservatism, whose mingled nescience and cowardice testify to the gutlessness and wicked stupidity of what passes for the Right.”
“In fact, his ignorance of worldly matters seems to be exceeded only by his nescience – perhaps in a rather charming way – with things of the spirit.”
“Evil is a by-product of evolution in Teilhard, while in Aurobindo, evil is nescience, the lowest state of divinity, and the absolute being is really beyond all duality, including good and evil.”
“In such a naked state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method of his own.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nescience’.
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 330 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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phrontistery - n
from phrontistery.info
nacarat, nacelle, nacket, nacre, nacreous, naevus, naiant, nail, nainsook, naissant, nanism, nanization and 340 more...
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Especially
Being a list of words which have "especially" in their definitions.
wringing-machine, especially, device, field, scrip, hit, catch, take, buck, flip, effluvium, proselyte and 107 more...
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briwref's list
defalcation, macerate, beldam, nescience, ochlocracy, bibelot, estivate, spatulated, introversive, mastoidal, belletristic, objurgation and 108 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 505 more...
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Chelsea's list
acedia, braggadocio, abnegation, equanimity, flibbertigibbet, edentulous, debonair, hypnotic, pococurante, logorrhea, euonym, feckless and 23 more...
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philosophia obscura
a collection of strange, unusual, hidden and forgotten ideas and beliefs
xenophanean, ailuromancy, philology, scop, spagyric, obeah, tref, anhedonia, syssitia, dybbuk, helot, nescience and 6 more...
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Dictionary.com Words of the Days of 1999
1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008
emolument, palindrome, deprecate, bivouac, umbrage, incipient, dapple, pugnacious, capitulate, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious and 229 more...
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jaradgiese's Words
paronomasia, ostensible, insouciant, sobriquet, burlesque, insalubrious, apotheosis, hyperbole, connubial, felicity, florid, conurbation and 642 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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vocabulary
verisimilitude, pendulate, moxie, whimper, nary, stevedore, hubris, prodigious, super-injunction, injunction, lashings, fennel and 202 more...
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deidionysus's list
Words, words, words!
cartesian, shavian, dithyramb, dreadnaught, lea, adamantine, titanomachy, theomachy, aethereal, ambrosia, ambrosial, aether and 183 more...
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word list!!!!
lagniappe
syzygy, bloviate, lagniappe, laconic, condign, umbrage, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious, capitulate, glower, repast and 179 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nescience.

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