unseen
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
adj.not seen, noticed, or discovered by anyone.
adj.not observed, perceived, or discovered; existing or happening without being seen.
Simple“The cameras were hidden so that the birds could live their lives unseen.”
In context“The virus spread through the population unseen for weeks before the first patients began showing clinical symptoms.”
- 02 C1 Advanced
n.a piece of writing or music that you must translate or perform without seeing it before the exam.
n.a passage of text, music, or other material that a student has not previously studied, provided for sight translation or analysis in an examination.
Simple“I am nervous about the Latin unseen because the vocabulary is always difficult.”
In context“The final examination consists of two three-hour papers, the first of which is a challenging unseen from a late-period Greek historian.”
UsageOften used as a countable noun in the context of classical or modern language degrees.
Synonymssight translation
“But apart from some papers that are dutifully waved around, any work that would have gone into this deal goes unseen.”
“This is the unseen cost of a trade war.”
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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.