nescience

American  

[nesh-uhns, nesh-ee-uhns, nes-ee-] / ˈnɛʃ əns, ˈnɛʃ i əns, ˈnɛs i- /

noun

1. lack of knowledge; ignorance.

2. agnosticism.

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nescience British  

/ ˈnɛsɪəns /

noun

1. a formal or literary word for ignorance

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Other Word Forms

• nescient adjective
• nonnescience noun
• nonnescient adjective

Etymology

Origin of nescience

First recorded in 1605–15; from Late Latin nescientia “ignorance,” from nescient-, the stem of nesciēns, present participle of nescīre “to be ignorant, not to know,” equivalent to ne- “not” + scientia “knowledge”; see science

Example Sentences

Whether this be so or not, it is difficult to see how any idea of kinship could arise from such a condition of nescience.

From Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia by Thomas, Northcote Whitridge

Theology and metaphysics Comte repeatedly characterises as the two successive stages of nescience, unavoidable as preludes to science.

From An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant by Moore, Edward Caldwell

The plane of consciousness in which he had so long moved, with a memory running back five years and there ending in a blank wall of nescience, had made him cunning and shifty—necessarily so.

From Double Trouble Or, Every Hero His Own Villain by Lowell, Orson

Our exuberant nescience in matters Sternian extends up to the very publication of Tristram, as far as the determining causes of its production are concerned.

From The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Sterne, Laurence

It is therefore a science founded on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness.

From Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy by Ruskin, John