unbeknownst
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 15, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n unbeknownst • \\un-bih-NOHNST\\ • adjective
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Unbeknownst means \u201cwithout being known about by (a specified person or group of people).\u201d
\n\n// Unbeknownst to the students, the teacher had entered the room.
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\u201cUnbeknownst to many tenants across the city, an obscure city rule requires some newly built rental properties to be put under the city\u2019s rent stabilization ordinance, commonly referred to as rent control.\u201d \u2014 Andre Khouri, The Los Angeles Times, 29 Apr. 2024
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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For reasons unbeknownst to perhaps all of us, unbeknownst is a word in good standing. It has the ring of a true archaism, what with that -st ending we know from such Shakespearean gems as \u201cthou dost snore distinctly,\u201d and yet it is not what it seems; unbeknownst may resemble archaic verb forms like dost and canst, but it\u2019s just playing dress-up. To authentically use dost and canst one has to be addressing someone else, and no one has ever said \u201cthou unbeknownst,\u201d or even \u201cthou beknownst.\u201d Beknown, which had some meager use between the 16th and 19th centuries, was a form of the verb beknow (in use between the 14th and 16th centuries) but was mostly used as an adjective meaning \u201cknown, familiar.\u201d If anything would get the -st ending, it would be beknow, and the form would be beknowst or beknowest. All this to say, when unbeknownst started cropping up in fictional dialogue in the early decades of the 19th century, the word did not please everyone. By the early 20th century, it was being disparaged as \u201ca vulgar provincialism\u201d and a term \u201cout of use except in dialect or uneducated speech.\u201d The slander has done no good whatsoever. Unbeknownst is perfectly standard today, even in formal prose. Note that speakers of British English prefer unbeknown, which lacks that unjustified -st and is 200 years older. Perhaps our friends across the pond beknow more than we do.
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