ignorance
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See also: Ignorance
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English ignoraunce, ignorance, from Old French ignorance, from Latin ignōrantia. By surface analysis, ignore + -ance.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ĭg'nərəns, IPA(key): /ˈɪɡ.nə.ɹəns/
- (General American) enPR: ĭg'nərəns, IPA(key): /ˈɪɡ.nɚ.əns/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
ignorance (countable and uncountable, plural ignorances)
- The condition of being uninformed or uneducated; lack of knowledge or information.
- Synonyms: blindness, cluelessness, knowledgelessness, unawareness, unknowingness, unknowledge
- She shows total ignorance about the topic at hand.
- 1964, Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 156:
- There had been the whisky and Perrier in the morning but, in my ignorance of alcoholics then, I could not imagine one whisky harming anyone who was driving in an open car in the rain.
- (religion, in the plural) Sins committed through ignorance.
Usage notes
- In Roman Catholic theology, vincible or wilful ignorance is such as one might be fairly expected to overcome, hence it can never be an excuse for sin, whether of omission or of commission; while invincible ignorance, which a person cannot help or abate, altogether excuses from guilt.
Derived terms
Translations
condition of being uninformed or uneducated
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Anagrams
French
Etymology
Inherited from Old French ignorance, borrowed from Latin ignōrantia.
Pronunciation
Noun
ignorance f (plural ignorances)
- ignorance
- 1772, Paul-Henri Thiry (baron d') Holbach, Le Bon-Sens, ou, Idées Naturelles Opposées aux Idées Surnaturelles, London: Marc-Michel Rey, →LCCN, →OL, §30, page 22:
- Tous les enfans ſont des athées; ils n’ont aucune idée de Dieu: ſont-ils donc criminels à cauſe de cette ignorance?
- All children are born atheists; they have no idea of God. Are they then criminal on account of their ignorance?
Further reading
- “ignorance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.
Anagrams
Old French
Etymology
Inherited from Latin ignōrantia.
Noun
ignorance oblique singular, f (oblique plural ignorances, nominative singular ignorance, nominative plural ignorances)
- ignorance (lacking of knowledge; lack of understanding)
- something that one is ignorant of
Descendants
References
- Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (ignorance, supplement)