Word.ws English Dictionary

unknownly

unknownly adverb: mysteriously, without a known reason or cause. Also the alternative form of unknowingly.

Adverb

unknownly (not comparable)

  1. (dated, rare) Mysteriously, without a known reason or cause.
    • Just then it open’d; and th’enclosed Grain / Unknownly vanisht; and then clos’d again1646, Francis Quarles, The Shepheards Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues, page 64
  2. (rare) Obscurely, 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

Also used as

unknownly is also the alternative form of unknowingly.

Origin of unknownly

From unknown + -ly.

Questions about unknownly

What does unknownly mean?
Unknownly means mysteriously, without a known reason or cause.
What part of speech is unknownly?
Unknownly is an adverb.

Words near unknownly in the dictionary

  1. unknown quantities
  2. unknown quantity
  3. Unknown Soldier
  4. unknown unknown
  5. unknown unknowns
  6. unknownly
  7. unknownness
  8. unknownnesses
  9. unknowns
  10. unknownst
  11. unknows

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unknownly (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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