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unanswered

adjectiveB2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,400 of 15,258neutral

Unanswered means having received no reply. An unanswered letter, questions left unanswered, unanswered calls.

The commonest use is about questions rather than letters: unanswered questions is the standard phrase in journalism for what an inquiry has not settled. Unanswered prayer is the older use, and it belongs to religious writing.

Definitions of unanswered

  1. 1adjectiveunansweredHaving received no reply.B2

    “My letters to the council have gone unanswered for months.”

unanswered is a state.

Where it comes from

Un- plus answered, from Old English andswaru, a reply — literally a swearing against, from a legal oath.

  1. Middle English

    unansuered

  2. English, today

    unanswered

From Middle English unansuered, unanswerd, equivalent to un- + answered.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

unanswered in the wild

  • Users may also request ("askme") unanswered questions without posing their own.

    Internet Oracle

  • The previous record-holder was Ding Junhui, who scored 495 unanswered points against Stephen Hendry at the 2007 Premier League Snooker.

    2014 Masters (snooker)

  • Penn State converted a 27-yard field goal to cut the deficit to 4, but then Clemson proceeded to score 21 unanswered points.

    1988 Florida Citrus Bowl

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.