nescience
(ˈnɛʃ(ɪ)əns, ˈniːʃ(ɪ)əns)
[ad. late L. nescientia, f. nesciens: see next.]
Absence or lack of knowledge, ignorance.
| 1612 Woodall Surg. Mate Pref., Wks. (1653) 19, I can yet adde many more needfull particulars, which the Author hath in his nescience omitted. 1653 Jer. Taylor Serm. for Year i. viii. 92, I need not instance in the ignorance and involuntary nescience of men. 1715 A. A. Sykes Innoc. Error 26 If his salvation is not at stake by reason of his nescience. a 1761 Huggins in Boswell Johnson an. 1780, I will militate no longer against his nescience. 1831 Carlyle Sart. Res. iii. iv, The miserable fraction of Science which united Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has acquired. 1883 H. Drummond Nat. Law in Spir. W. (ed. 2) 160 These touching, and too sincere confessions of universal nescience. |
b. An instance of this. rare.
| a 1625 Boys Wks. (1629) 306 According to these distinctions every nescience is not a sinne. 1652–62 Heylin Cosmogr. App. (1682) 157 The knowledge of them so imperfect as comes near a Nescience. |
c. Const. of a thing.
| 1637 Jackson Serm. Jer. xxvi. 19 Wks. 1844 VI. 93 Not out of a nescience of this rule. 1691 E. Taylor Behmen's Theos. Philos. 107 A Nescience or Oblivion of Divine Tranquility. a 1734 North Lives (1826) III. 351 Brutes have an advantage over human kind..in their nescience of evils to come. 1856 Ferrier Inst. Metaph. 414 A nescience of that which it would contradict the nature of all intelligence to know. 1875 Manning Mission H. Ghost i. 6 There was in Adam a nescience of many things. |