Anonymous
//əˈnɑ.nə.məs// adj, name
adj, name ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Lacking a name; not named, for example an animal not assigned to any species . not-comparable
- 2 Without any name acknowledged of a person responsible. not-comparable
"an anonymous pamphlet"
- 3 Of unknown name; whose name is withheld not-comparable
"an anonymous author"
- 4 Lacking individuality. comparable, figuratively
"an anonymous office block in a soulless industrial estate"
Adjective
- 1 having no known name or identity or known source wordnet
- 2 not known or lacking marked individuality wordnet
Proper Noun
- 1 A decentralized hacktivist group that conducts cyberattacks opposing primarily Internet censorship and government corruption.
- 2 A member of an anonymous imageboard website, especially of 4chan. Internet
- 3 The members of an anonymous imageboard website, especially of 4chan. Internet, collective
Example
More examples"An astute reader should be willing to weigh everything they read, including anonymous sources."
Etymology
Borrowed into English around 1600 from Late Latin anonymus, from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓νώνῠμος (ănṓnŭmos, “without name”), from ᾰ̓ν- (ăn-, “un-”) with ὄνῠμᾰ (ónŭmă), Aeolic and Doric dialectal form of ὄνομᾰ (ónomă, “name”). English equivalent anonym + -ous, its full etymology being an- + -onym + -ous.
Related phrases
More for "anonymous"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.