unread

American  

[uhn-red] / ʌnˈrɛd /

adjective

1. not read, as a letter or newspaper.

2. lacking in knowledge gained by reading; having read little or nothing.

   She was intelligent but unread.

3. having little knowledge of a specific field.

   a brilliant chemist unread in biology.

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unread British  

/ ʌnˈrɛd /

adjective

1. (of a book, newspaper, etc) not yet read

2. (of a person) having read little

3. not versed (in a specified field)

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Etymology

Origin of unread

First recorded in 1425–75, unread is from the late Middle English word unred. See un- ¹, read ²

Example Sentences

But after moments in front of the class that felt more like years, Kathy clumsily folded up her unread poem, stuffed it into her pocket, and ran home almost halfway through the rez.

From Literature

I stare at the email, bold and unread in my inbox.

From Literature

“All I want to do is make a whole pot of coffee, get the paper and a big stack of unread comic books, and sit on the porch.”

From Los Angeles Times

While editing helps with emails I do send, a bigger challenge remains: the 16,685 unread messages in my inbox.

From The Wall Street Journal

One of Australia's biggest telecommunication companies sent emails about a deadly outage to the wrong email address at the Department of Communcations where they remained unread for over a day, parliament has heard.

From BBC

Related Words

• illiterate
• innocent
• naive
• oblivious
• obtuse
• uneducated
• uninformed