Etymology

know-nothing

Today it means: A member of a secret antiforeigner political organization in the nineteenth-century United States. Full definition →

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know-nothing · adjective, noun1

Essentially deverbal in nature, albeit not from a unitary phrasal verb. Compare do-nothing § Etymology.

Know-Nothing · noun2

Party members claimed to know nothing about the party when questioned.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.