ignorance

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of knowledge

Nouns

1. ignorance, nescience; illiteracy; darkness, blindness; incomprehension, inexperience, simplicity, simpleness, innocence; stupidity; unawareness. See folly, insanity, shallowness.

2. (something not known) unknown quantity, sealed book, terra incognita, virgin soil, unexplored ground; dark ages. Slang, brain fart.

3. (limited knowledge) smattering, glimmering; dilettantism, superficiality; bewilderment (see doubt); incapacity; blind spot. Slang, bozon. See

unskillfulness.

4. aliterate; idiot savant; innocent, ignoramus, dunce, dolt, know-nothing, dullard, moron; simpleton, oaf, lout, clod, bonehead, blockhead, halfwit, dimwit, idiot; greenhorn, novice (see beginning). Informal, dummy. Slang, lowbrow, lightfoot, nitwit, dumbbell, dope, stupe, addlebrain, airball, airhead, ass, asshole, birdbrain, bohunk, boob, boor, bumpkin, churl, clyde, conehead, dickhead, dim bulb, ding-a-ling, dingbat, dingdong, dipshit, dipstick, donkey, doorknob, dork, droid, drone, dufus, dumbfuck, dumb bunny, cluck, or dora, dweeb, flake, galloot, gimp, gleep, goofball, goofus, grobian, harebrain, klotz, kluck, lamebrain, meatball, meathead, moke, mutant, neanderthal, nincompoop, ninny, palooka, pigmeat, putz, quimp, reject, retard, sausage, shit-for-brains, schlub, shmuck, shnook, simp, turkey, twerp, waldo, yahoo, yinyang, yokel, yo-yo, zero, zib.

Verbs

1. be ignorant, not know, have no idea, conception, or notion, not have the remotest idea; not know from Adam; ignore, be blind to; see through a glass darkly; not know what to make of. Informal, fly blind. Slang, know shit from shinola, know one's ass from a hole in the ground.

2. keep in the dark or in ignorance (see concealment).

3. act stupid. Slang, jeff.

Adjectives

1. ignorant; unknowing, unaware, incognizant, unacquainted; unapprised, unwitting, witless; a stranger to; unconversant; uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, unlettered, none the wiser, uneducated, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, preliterate, unguided, unenlightened, crass; behind the times; in the dark, benighted; hoodwinked, misinformed; at sea (see doubt).Informal, out of it, out of the loop. Slang, clueless, airbrained, birdbrained, blockheaded, boneheaded, brain-dead, empty-skulled, harebrained, thick, slow, rooty-poot.

2. shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate; stupid, half-witted; thick[-headed], as thick as two short planks.

Adverbs — ignorantly, unaware[s], for anything one knows; not that one knows.

Phrases — nothing so bold as a blind mare; a slice off a cut loaf isn't missed; what you don't know can't hurt you.

Quotations — Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise (Thomas Gray), Ignorance is not innocence but sin (Robert Browning), You know everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects (Will Rogers), Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain (Friedrich von Schiller), Lord, what fools these mortals be! (Shakespeare), There is no sin except stupidity (Oscar Wilde), It is ill-manners to silence a fool, and cruelty to let him go on (Benjamin Franklin), There is no darkness but ignorance (Shakespeare).

Antonyms, see knowledge, intelligence.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [Lack of specific knowledge]

Syn. unawareness, unconsciousness, unfamiliarity, incomprehension, bewilderment, incapacity, inexperience, simplicity, disregard, obliviousness, insensitivity, sciolism, nescience, shallowness, superficiality, confusion, fog, vagueness, half-knowledge, a little learning, no more than a tyro's background, greenness; see also sense 2, confusion 2 .

Ant. ability*, learning, erudition.

2. [Lack of general knowledge]

Syn. illiteracy, unenlightenment, mental incapacity, denseness, dumbness, empty-headedness, crudeness, barbarism, philistinism, vulgarity, obtuseness, unfamiliarity, unintelligence, rawness, benightedness, superstition, darkness, blindness, simplicity, innocence, stolidity, unscholarliness, functional illiteracy, know-nothingism, lack of learning, lack of education, lack of erudition, lack of information; see also sense 1, stupidity 1 .

Ant. knowledge*, acquaintance, understanding.

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

stupidity, inexperience, unenlightenment, illiteracy, denseness, naivete, unfamiliarity, unconsciousness, emptyheadedness, innocence, nescience, greenness. ''The only slavery.''—Ralph Ingersoll.

ANT.: knowledge, experience, intelligence

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. The condition of being ignorant; lack of knowledge or learning: benightedness, illiteracy, illiterateness, nescience. See KNOWLEDGE. 2. The condition of being uninformed or unaware: innocence, nescience, obliviousness, unawareness, unconsciousness, unfamiliarity. See KNOWLEDGE.