Unbeknown
adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Not beknown.
"Following the debate in question, Tim Loughton sent an unmarked copy of Hansard to his constituent to inform him that he would no longer be acting as his MP as the constituent had made this position untenable. [...] However, and unbeknown to Loughton, the constituent reported the debate to the police as a 'hate crime' and complained that sending a copy of Hansard was 'harassment'."
- 1 (usually used with ‘to’) occurring or existing without the knowledge of wordnet
- 1 without someone's knowledge wordnet
Example
More examples"Following the debate in question, Tim Loughton sent an unmarked copy of Hansard to his constituent to inform him that he would no longer be acting as his MP as the constituent had made this position untenable. [...] However, and unbeknown to Loughton, the constituent reported the debate to the police as a 'hate crime' and complained that sending a copy of Hansard was 'harassment'."
Etymology
From un- + beknown.
More for "unbeknown"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.