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Synonyms

unclaimed

British  
/ ʌnˈkleɪmd /

adjective

  1. not having been claimed

    £7 million in unclaimed prizes

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Explanation

Unclaimed things haven't been collected or demanded, like an unclaimed sweatshirt in the lost-and-found bin at school. When you claim something, you make a formal request for it or assert that you have a right to it, the way you claim your seat at the theater or claim your bag from the baggage carousel at the airport. Bags that left at the airport or seats left empty? Those are unclaimed.

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The state has some $15 billion in unclaimed property, including securities, such as stock holdings, mutual funds, and retirement accounts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

"There is a lot of funding that goes unclaimed because students don't know that they're eligible for it," he added.

From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026

Gavin Oldham, chair of the Share Foundation, said the main reason for accounts going unclaimed is that some young people have simply never been told about it.

From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026

The reader who suggested leaving Social Security benefits unclaimed, if you don’t need them, does raise an interesting question about personal responsibility.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 3, 2026

In fact no personal articles: what greeted him consisted of unclaimed debris which Polokov had inherited when he took the apartment and which in leaving he had abandoned to the next—if any—tenant.

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

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