Roget's Thesaurus

#491. Ignorance

Nouns

ignorance, nescience, tabula rasa [Lat.], crass ignorance, ignorance crasse [Fr.]; unfamiliarity, unacquaintance; unconsciousness etc. adj.; darkness, blindness; incomprehension, inexperience, simplicity. unknown quantities, x,y,z. sealed book, terra incognita, virgin soil, unexplored ground; dark ages. [Imperfect knowledge] smattering, sciolism, glimmering, dilettantism; bewilderment etc. (uncertainty) 475; incapacity. [Affectation of knowledge] pedantry; charlatanry, charlatism; Philister, Philistine.

Verbs

be ignorant etc. adj.; not know etc. 490; know not, know not what, know nothing of; have no idea, have no notion, have no conception; not have the remotest idea; not know chalk from cheese. ignore, be blind to; keep in ignorance etc. (conceal) 528. see through a glass darkly; have a film over the eyes, have a glimmering etc. n.; wonder whether; not know what to make of etc. (unintelligibility) 519; not pretend to take upon, not take upon one self to say.

Adjectives

ignorant; nescient; unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised, unapprized, unwitting, unweeting, unconscious; witless, weetless; a stranger to; unconversant. uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened; Philistine; behind the age. shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate; unread, uninformed, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unbookish; empty-headed, dizzy, wooly-headed; pedantic; in the dark; benighted, belated; blinded, blindfolded; hoodwinked; misinformed; au bout de son latin, at the end of his tether, at fault; at sea etc. (uncertain) 475; caught tripping. unknown, unapprehended, unexplained, unascertained, uninvestigated, unexplored, unheard of, not perceived; concealed etc. 528; novel.

Adverbs

ignorantly etc. adj.; unawares; for anything, for aught one knows; not that one knows.

Interjections

God knows, Heaven knows, the Lord knows, who knows, nobody knows.

Phrases

ignorance never settles a question [Disraeli]; quantum animis erroris inest! [Lat.] [Ovid]; small Latin and less Greek [B. Jonson]; that unlettered small-knowing soul [Love's Labor's Lost]; there is no darkness but ignorance [Twelfth Night].