Unwitting
adj ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Unaware or uninformed; oblivious.
"We've located the perfect site for experimentation on live test subjects. Kadara's "badlands" offer unsupervised access to unwitting test subjects free from any lawful or ethical constraints."
- 2 Unintentional.
"(transl.) 4th century BC, Plato, Sophist, 230a Some people, apparently, have thought about it and reached the conclusion that every case of being misinformed is unwitting."
- 1 not aware or knowing wordnet
- 2 unaware because of a lack of relevant information or knowledge wordnet
- 3 not done with purpose or intent wordnet
Example
More examples"For the Fourth Men, the Great Brains, there was no possible life but the life of intellect; and the life of intellect had become barren. Evidently something more than mere bulk of brain was needed for the solving of the deeper intellectual problems. They must, therefore, somehow create a new brain-quality, or organic formation of brain, capable of a mode of vision or insight impossible in their present state. They must learn somehow to remake their own brain-tissues upon a new plan. With this aim, and partly through unwitting jealousy of the natural and more balanced species which had created them, they began to use their captive specimens of that species for a great new enterprise of research into the nature of human braintissue."
Etymology
From Middle English unwittinge, unwitand, from Old English unwitende (“unwitting; not knowing; unaware; unconscious”), from Proto-Germanic *unwitandz (“not knowing”), equivalent to un- + witting. Cognate with West Frisian ûnwittend, Dutch onwetend, German Low German unwetend, German unwissend and unwissentlich, Icelandic óvitandi.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.