Meanings
- datednot comparablerareMysteriously, without a known reason or cause.
Just then it open’d; and th’enclosed Grain / Unknownly vanisht; and then clos’d again
1646, Francis Quarles, The Shepheards Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues, page 64 - not comparablerareObscurely, without being known or noticed.
Attentively the grey horse wended / (by many a mighty fist forfended) / through men that lay unknownly dying, / and trod on shallow blackened grass.
1960, J.B. Leishman, Selected Works, translation of original by Rainer Maria Rilke, page 122 - alternativenot comparableuncommonAlternative form of unknowingly, without knowledge; without intent.
if any thing of that nature be brought in, and desired to be lodged with the Society [...] they should be obliged to shew it first to the President (for fear of lodging unknownly ballads and buffooneries in these scoffing times), and that then it should be sealed up
1848, Charles Richard Weld, “1665–1670”, in A History of the Royal Society, With Memoirs of the Presidents, page 2091 more example
In 1826 it was discovered that the log church and the dwellings on the north side of the creek had unknownly been built on lands set aside by an act of Congress for school purposes, the subsequent rent or sale of which would largely make up the school fund for the Territory.
1971, Lambert LaVoy, Bay settlement of Monroe County, Michigan, page 88
Origin
Cite this entry
unknownly. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unknownly
“unknownly.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unknownly. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unknownly,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unknownly.
Source: unknownly on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.