| 释义 |
unˈknowable, a. and n.
(un-1 7 b.)
c1374Chaucer Boeth. iii. met. vii. (1886) 47 Liggeth thanne stille al owtrely vnknowable, ne fame ne maketh yow nat knowe. 1456Sir G. Hay Bk. Knighthood Wks. (S.T.S.) II. 16 The quhilkis ar unknawable till..unworthy personis. 1653H. More Antid. Ath. i. iv. §3 He is a very Novice in Speculation that does not acknowledge that to be unknowable. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §31. 471 There is something of God Vnknowable and Incomprehensible by all Mortals. 1740Cheyne Regimen 35 If we dropt both substances, as unknown and unknowable Things at present. 1754Edwards Freed. Will ii. xii. 119 If there be any Truth which is absolutely without Evidence, that Truth is absolutely unknowable. 1818F. Hall Trav. Canada & U.S. 28 Indeed privacy..seems quite unknown, and unknowable to the Americans. 1873Morley Rousseau II. 90 Men..will be thankful not to waste life in guessing evil about unknowable trifles.
b. absol. (with the). That which cannot be known. (Common from c 1860.)
1823Monthly Rev. CI. 447 Here, again, the author professes to know the unknowable. 1867Lewes Hist. Philos. I. p. cxv, We always hope that the Unknown is not also the Unknowable.
c. As n. An unknowable thing.
1725Watts Logic i. vi. §1 To distinguish well between Knowables and Unknowables. 1733― Philos. Ess. i. xii, In every Age..there will be some Unknowables and Insolvables. 1874B. P. Browne Philos. H. Spencer ii. 41 (Stand.), Mr. Spencer's argument proves an unexplainable, not an unknowable.
Hence unˈknowableness.
1664N. Ingelo Bentiv. & Ur. ii. vi. 367 The unknowableness of the manner of this Union. 1697J. Sergeant Solid Philos. 301 The Unknowableness of Real Essences. 1856Ruskin Mod. Paint. IV. 81 The great religious painters rejoiced in that kind of unknowableness. 1886Jane Lee Faust p. xxxiii, The unknowableness of the nature of things. |