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omniscience

omniscience

4 9.9
The state of knowing everything
  • noun
  • /ɑmˈnɪʃəns/
translation icon : omnisciencia
  • Excluding the possibility of omniscience, only the protagonist could plausibly tell this tale.

Proposing a solution to omniscience is opposite, maybe to be seen.

Examples

  • In human affairs, there is wisdom but not magical omniscience.

    Academic text (1992)
  • Mises is certainly not making any such assumption of omniscience.

    Academic text (1999)
  • "No state or collection of states can claim the divine omniscience required to lay down law on behalf of another people."

    Academic text (2003)
  • It's moments like these when that omniscient narrator lives up to its name, that sense of omniscience that we might associate with God.

  • When we are given the privilege of omniscience regarding Edgar, he is often just as distressed as Camilla.

    Academic text (2018)
  • The dewdrops are everywhere and Odin gets a vision, a kind of omniscience, where he's seeing everything from a different point of view.

  • Ignorance would destroy His deity just as much as omniscience would abolish His humanity.

    Blog text (21)
  • Your Honor, Mr. Horn with virtually godlike omniscience... and without hearing a single word from Dr. Allwin... has already arrived at a conclusion... which the testimony of the witness may not support.

  • Napoleon was the last autodidact of the eighteenth century, a soul striving heroically to attain a kind of omniscience.

    Academic text (2000)
  • The concept of omniscience suggests that an individual can know everything without any limits.

Antonyms

316 3.9

Not knowing about something or how it works

How Knowledgeable

omniscience
4 9.9
wisdom
571 2.7
understanding
871 1.1
knowledge
1.0
ignorance
316 3.9

Surface Forms

omniscience singular
omnisciences plural

Morphology

omniscience = science (transparent) = omni + science

Formed by the productive prefix 'omni-' (all) attached to the noun 'science' (knowledge), yielding the straightforward meaning 'all knowledge'.

Etymology

Omniscience comes from omni- meaning 'all' and -science from scire meaning 'to know'. Think of omnivore ('eats all') and science ('knowledge') to help remember it. So omniscience means 'knowing all', which is why it describes having complete knowledge.