Topic Thesaurus
Roget's Thesaurus

Ignorance

Nouns
  • ignorance, nescience, crass ignorance
  • 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) Uncertainty
  • incapacity. [Affectation of knowledge] pedantry
  • charlatanry, charlatism
  • Philister, Philistine.
Verbs
  • be ignorant etc. adj.
  • not know etc. Knowledge
  • 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) Concealment. 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) Unintelligibility
  • 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) Uncertainty
  • caught tripping. unknown, unapprehended, unexplained, unascertained, uninvestigated, unexplored, unheard of, not perceived
  • concealed etc. Concealment
  • novel.
Adverbs
  • ignorantly etc. adj.
  • unawares
  • for anything, for aught one knows
  • not that one knows.
Int
  • God knows, Heaven knows, the Lord knows, who knows, nobody knows.
Phrases
  • ignorance never settles a question" [Disraeli]
  • 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].