unbeknownst to
19
8.9
- idiom
:
sin que lo supiera
- Unbeknownst to me, my friends were planning a surprise birthday party.
I mean, we know for a fact that Laundry Service taped the conversation unbeknownst to me.
- I mean, we know for a fact that Laundry Service taped the conversation unbeknownst to me.
- This there's a story happening and then there's a story that the writer is writing, but unbeknownst to him, they both are the same story.
- And totally unbeknownst to him, I had a lot of history with depressive episodes.
- And then unbeknownst to me, when I was done with that class, he spent the next three months doing those training exercises every day for four hours.
- So for some reason, unbeknownst to most of us, Nintendo partnered with Panasonic to create a upgraded version of the Game Cube that could also play DVDs.
- So the Army, unbeknownst to me save saved me from that.
- And so that unbeknownst to them is going to be testing them.
- Daytime phone rings, unbeknownst to me in the planning area.
- Then unbeknownst to me, you suddenly get brought back on.
- In, in certain ways, like almost, you know, unbeknownst to you, like, I was a lawyer in San Francisco.
- And unbeknownst to us, we're running into all of this shenanigans.
- So he needs to devise situations where unbeknownst to them, they lose that fucking belt because it's not theirs.
Examples
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Unbeknownst to his mother, his employer, his church and his friends, Mr. Weese is HIV-positive.
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Edgar, the clerk in question, is in love with Rita, who unbeknownst to him, is living a double life.
Academic text (2000) -
So that right there I think caused some issues unbeknownst to me at the time.
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Then unbeknownst to me, you suddenly get brought back on.
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But unbeknownst to me, I was followed home by a secret agent of the police.
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But unbeknownst to Bill, the problem has not been solved with the issue in his car.
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We did accept their offer, but unbeknownst to them, we also purchased a second unit for ourselves off of Amazon.
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And unbeknownst to us, we're running into all of this shenanigans.
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Our little Arria had secret talents unbeknownst to us.
Fiction book (1998) -
Unbeknownst to him, Beckham had played his last game in the famous three lions Jersey.
Synonyms
25
9.1
Happening without someone knowing about it
1
9.1
Without someone knowing
Antonyms
How Known
Surface Forms
Morphology
unbeknownst + to
The meaning 'without the knowledge of (someone)' is directly carried by 'unbeknownst' (occurring without someone's awareness) with 'to' simply marking the person affected; there is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift beyond this composition. A learner who knows both constituents can therefore infer the phrase's meaning.
Etymology
Unbeknownst to comes from old words that mean 'not' and 'known', with un- (not) and beknownst (known), so imagine a surprise done while someone does not know. So when something happens unbeknownst to someone, it means it happened 'without the knowledge of' that person.