Know-nothing
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A member of a secret antiforeigner political organization in the nineteenth-century United States. US, historical
"The legacy of the Know-Nothings lived beyond its life as an organization. The seeds of bigotry, fear and hatred bore fruit again in the years after the Civil War.[…] The First World War led to another outbreak of nativism. A new group, adopting the program of the Know-Nothings and the name of the Ku Klux Klan, came into being, denouncing everything its members disliked—Negroes, Catholics, Jews, evolutionists, religious liberals, internationalists, pacifists—in the name of true Americanism and of “Nordic superiority.”"
- 2 An ignorant person; one who lacks knowledge.
- 1 Ignorant; characterized by foolish denial of facts or beliefs in that which is not true. not-comparable
"All over the world, know-nothing xenophobes are claiming – without evidence – that climate science is rigged."
Example
More examples"The legacy of the Know-Nothings lived beyond its life as an organization. The seeds of bigotry, fear and hatred bore fruit again in the years after the Civil War.[…] The First World War led to another outbreak of nativism. A new group, adopting the program of the Know-Nothings and the name of the Ku Klux Klan, came into being, denouncing everything its members disliked—Negroes, Catholics, Jews, evolutionists, religious liberals, internationalists, pacifists—in the name of true Americanism and of “Nordic superiority.”"
Etymology
Party members claimed to know nothing about the party when questioned.
Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb. Compare do-nothing § Etymology.
Related phrases
More for "know-nothing"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.