[‘ Ignorant. Freq. with of.']
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈnɛsɪənt/, U.S. /ˈnɛʃ(i)ənt/, ˈnɛsiənt
Forms: lME *nesciant*, 16 18– *nescient*.
Etymology: < classical Latin /nescient-, /nesciēns, present participle of nescīre to be ignorant, not to know < /ne-/ not (see ne adv.1) + scīre to know (see science n.). Compare Anglo-Norman /nescient/ (first half of 13th cent.), Old French /nesciens/, nescient (/a/1227, in a single source).
*A.* adj.
*1.* Ignorant. Freq. with of.
/a/1500 (▸?c1425) /Speculum Sacerdotale/ 123 Þe preste oweþ noȝt for to yeve to eny culpable man þat is nesciant and unknowynge a pure obley as for body of Crist.
1635 T. Jackson /Humiliation Sonne of God/ 118 Infinite knowledge..can neither be ignorant or nescient of any thing.
1678 R. Cudworth /True Intellect. Syst. Universe/ i. v. 899 A Blind and Nescient..Nature.
1881 F. T. Palgrave /Visions of Eng./ 158 They ‘neath their feet tread nescient pride and fear.
1884 J. Ruskin /Fors Clavigera/ xcv. 257 Only scientific of their..pasture, peacefully nescient of all beyond.
1939 /Jrnl. Negro Educ./ *8* 84 The Hall of Negro Life presented to a nescient public a remarkable cross-sectional view of Negro life.
1971 A. Hailey /Wheels/ ix. 138 Many in the white world—nescient, shallow thinkers—called the attitude ‘shiftless’, and condemned it.
2000 /Independent on Sunday/ 10 Dec. i. 23/1 George W Bush, the smirking and nescient scion of the most mediocre political dynasty in American history.
*2.* Agnostic; (asserting that mankind is) incapable of understanding the ultimate constitution of reality.
1863 /New Englander (New Haven, Connecticut)/ Oct. 718 The Christian Theist has the better of his non-theistic imitator, in this particular application of the nescient philosophy.
1876 J. Martineau /Ess., Rev., & Addr./ (1891) IV. 242 A modern savant, whether of the Nescient or the Omniscient school.
1890 /Mind/ *15* 11 A philosophy which looks only to man’s organic participation in nature is logically atheistic..and..in the end completely nescient.
1964 /Renaissance News/ *17* 212 One is struck..by their willingness to assume the truth of the nescient hypothesis—surely an extreme example of intellectual humility.
1993 /Polit. Theory/ *21* 650 It is his [/sc./ Hobbes’s] view that our generally nescient condition is such that [etc.].
†*B.* n.
An agnostic. Obs./ /rare.
1872 W. G. Ward /Ess. Philos. Theism/ (1884) I. 63 A far larger number, of whom Professor Huxley may be taken as representative, are ‘nescients’.
1878 J. Morley /Diderot/ II. 212 The most eager Nescient or Denier to be found in the ranks of the assailants of theology in our own day.