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Knightian uncertainty

Knightian uncertainty noun: a lack of any quantifiable knowledge about some possible occurrence, as opposed to the presence of quantifiable risk.

Noun

Knightian uncertainty (countable and uncountable, plural Knightian uncertainties)

  1. A lack of any quantifiable knowledge about some possible occurrence, as opposed to the presence of quantifiable risk.
    • In addition, it is hard currently to assign probabilities to these scenarios. This is something economists refer to as Knightian uncertainty.2025 March 21, John C. Williams, “Certain Uncertainty (speech)”, in New York Fed (Remarks at the Macroeconometric Caribbean Conference, Nassau, Bahamas)

Forms of Knightian uncertainty

pluralKnightian uncertainties

Origin of Knightian uncertainty

Named after University of Chicago economist Frank Knight (1885–1972).

Questions about Knightian uncertainty

What does Knightian uncertainty mean?
Knightian uncertainty means a lack of any quantifiable knowledge about some possible occurrence, as opposed to the presence of quantifiable risk.
What part of speech is Knightian uncertainty?
Knightian uncertainty is a noun.
What is the plural of Knightian uncertainty?
The plural of Knightian uncertainty is Knightian uncertainties.

Words near Knightian uncertainty in the dictionary

  1. knightheads
  2. knighthood
  3. knighthoods
  4. Knightian
  5. Knightian uncertainties
  6. Knightian uncertainty
  7. Knightie
  8. Knighties
  9. knighting
  10. knightings
  11. knightless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Knightian uncertainty (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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