喜樂美語

核心畫面

You can picture a blank space on a form where an answer should be: the thing exists, but nobody has filled it in. Everything the word does is a version of that blank — a fact nobody has, a face nobody recognises, a place nobody has walked into.

可以想成表格上該填答案的地方一片空白：那件事是存在的，只是沒有人把它填上。這個字的各種用法都是這塊空白的不同版本——…更多收起可以想成表格上該填答案的地方一片空白：那件事是存在的，只是沒有人把它填上。這個字的各種用法都是這塊空白的不同版本——沒人掌握的事實、沒人認得的臉、沒人走進去過的地方。

Three branches

資訊上的空白

核心畫面本身：該有的資訊沒有人填上，於是事情、原因、甚至一個人的底細都懸在那裡。

not known · adjective · B1

Not known about, so that people do not have the facts or information.

不明的

沒有名氣

空白落在「大家認不認得你」上：這個人存在、有作品，只是還沒有人叫得出他的名字。

not famous · adjective · B1

Not famous or well-known to the public.

沒沒無聞的

未知的事物與領域（名詞）

把那塊空白本身當成一個東西來講：一個待解的量、一片沒去過的地方、一整片還不懂的事。

an unknown (fact) · noun · B1

A fact or thing that is not known or understood yet.

未知數

原始詞典資料5 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

unknownadj/ʌn(ˈn)əʊn/

  • 1

    Not known; unidentified; not well known.

    • The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. The three returned wondering and charmed with Mrs. Cooke; they were sure she had had no hand in the furnishing of that atrocious house.
    • I suspect that this large and complex military railway system, shrouded in official secrecy for most of its operational life, remains unknown to many people.

unknownnoun/ʌn(ˈn)əʊn/

  • 1

    algebramathematicssciencesA variable (usually x, y or z) whose value is to be found.

  • 2

    Any thing, place, or situation about which nothing is known; an unknown fact or piece of information.

    • Had God walked close beside her into the unknown?
    • I think I learned more from my family than they did from me in the brief idyllic time we spent together. None of them much more than a mile from home, they carried the aura of a close-knit community as a shield against against the unknown.
  • 3

    A person of no identity; a nonentity.

    • How does it feel, / how does it feel? / To be on your own, / with no direction home / A complete unknown, / like a rolling stone
    • Khaleque, the landowner, who had contributed most of the money needed to transform the neglected burial-place of an unknown into a mazar, masked his pride and pleasure with difficulty. He solemnly declared: ‘Perhaps now we shall be forgiven for neglecting the saint all these years.’

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：

資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。