nescience
noun
Simple meaning
The absence of knowledge.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nehseyeuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnɛsaɪəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The absence of knowledge, especially of orthodox beliefs.
philosophy
The doctrine that nothing is actually knowable.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The absence of knowledge, especially of orthodox beliefs.
Used this way, nescience is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: absence of knowledge or especially of orthodox beliefs
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.