| 单词 | unknown unknown |
| 释义 | > as lemmasunknown unknown unknown unknown n. (chiefly in plural) something unknown, the existence of which is itself not known or understood; esp. a wholly unforeseen contingency; a significant issue or event that is not even imagined until it occurs. Cf. unk-unk n.In the late 20th cent. the term apparently became prevalent in the aerospace industry, and was later popularized by the American politician Donald Rumsfeld who used it in a news briefing relating to the Iraq War (see quot. 2002). ΚΠ 1915 Math. Teacher (Syracuse, N.Y.) 7 105 The student of algebra spends a year or more studying unknown quantities, negative quantities..and at the end of that time he has mixed up in his mind a lot of unknown ‘unknowns’. 1950 Social Work Jrnl. 31 114/2 We recognize that our field is full of unknowns..but they tend to remain unknown unknowns. 1984 Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 51 969 They are not faced with a bolt from the blue, with an ‘unknown unknown’. 2002 D. Rumsfeld in Dept. Defense News Briefing 12 Feb. (transcript) in archive.defense.gov (O.E.D. Archive 2017) There are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. 2017 Toronto Star (Nexis) 26 July a13 Every government, no matter how successful, eventually grapples with an existential crisis. An ‘unknown unknown’ that strikes out of the blue. < as lemmas |
| 随便看 |
英语词典包含1132095条英英释义在线翻译词条，基本涵盖了全部常用单词的英英翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。