Word.ws English Dictionary

unseen

/ʌnˈsiːn/

unseen adjective: not seen or discovered; invisible. Also the past participle of unsee.

Adjective

unseen (not comparable)

  1. Not seen or discovered; invisible.
    • You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 9, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC
    • Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.1902, William James, “Lecture 3”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC
  2. Unskilled; inexperienced.
  3. Not hitherto noticed; unobserved.
    • I to the world am like a drop of water
      That in the ocean seeks another drop,
      Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
      Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • The advent of COVID passports, so soon after increased check-in bureaucracy post-Brexit, brought major logistical ramifications to St Pancras International, of a kind unseen at any other major station in Britain.2022 November 30, Nick Brodrick, “Pride and innovation shine at St Pancras”, in RAIL, number 971, page 67

Noun

unseen (plural unseens)

  1. An examination involving material not previously seen or studied.
    • I have French and Latin unseens this summer.

Also used as

unseen is also the past participle of unsee.

unseen meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu

unseen in Hindi

not seen
अदृश्य adŕśya, अलख alakh, अनदेखा andekhā

unseen in Tamil

காணப்படாதது

unseen in Marathi

न दिसलेली

unseen in Telugu

కనిపించనిది, కనిపించని, కనిపించనివి
More languagesFewer languages
unseen in Malayalam
കാണാത്തവർ, കാണാത്തവൻ, കാണാത്തവ
unseen in Kannada
ಕಾಣದ, ಕಾಣದಂಥದ್ದು
unseen in Punjabi
ਅਣਦੇਖੇ, ਅਣਦੇਖਿਆ
unseen in Sanskrit
अदृष्ट adṛṣṭa

Examples of unseen in a sentence

  • When night had fallen, the she-demon stole forth toward the hall, which she entered unheard and unseen.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 33:
  • Perhaps we assume that our name, address and search preferences will be viewed by some unseen pair of corporate eyes, probably not human, and don't mind that much.2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:

All 40 example sentences with unseen

Synonyms of unseen

24 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of unseen

Forms of unseen

pluralunseens

Origin of unseen

From Middle English unsen, unseyn, unseien, from Old English unġesewen, from Proto-Germanic *unsewanaz, equivalent to un- + seen. Cognate with Dutch ongezien (“unseen”), German Low German unsehn (“unseen”), German ungesehen (“unseen”).

From un- + seen.

Words formed from unseen

Phrases with unseen

Words that rhyme with unseen

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about unseen

What does unseen mean?
Unseen means not seen or discovered; invisible.
What is unseen in Hindi?
Unseen in Hindi is अदृश्य (adŕśya), अलख (alakh), अनदेखा (andekhā). See Unseen meaning in Hindi.
How do you use unseen in a sentence?
When night had fallen, the she-demon stole forth toward the hall, which she entered unheard and unseen.
What part of speech is unseen?
Unseen can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce unseen?
Unseen is pronounced /ʌnˈsiːn/.

Words near unseen in the dictionary

  1. unseemliest
  2. unseemlily
  3. unseemliness
  4. unseemlinesses
  5. unseemly
  6. unseen
  7. unseenness
  8. unseens
  9. unsees
  10. unseethed
  11. unsegmented

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unseen (page history and authors); unseen (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unseen (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unseen (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unseen (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unseen (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); unseen (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-unseen.wav.

Cite this entry: “unseen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unseen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.