Unfamiliar

Definition: Unfamiliar

Unfamiliar

Adjective

1. Not known or well known; "a name unfamiliar to most"; "be alert at night especially in unfamiliar surroundings".

Date "unfamiliar" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references)

Antonym: familiar (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Unconformity	Newfangled, novel, non-classical; original, unconventional, unheard of, unfamiliar; undescribed, unprecedented, unparalleled, unexampled.
Vulgarity	Obsolete; (antiquated); unfashionable; newfangled; (unfamiliar); odd; (ridiculous).
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. (The Beach; writing credit: John Hodge) Now, the Trojans will be unfamiliar to you, since they play an attacking game (The Arsenal Stadium Mystery; writing credit: Donald Bull; Thorold Dickinson) Familiar things just let us pretend that we aren't moving into unfamiliar territory. (Taken; writing credit: Leslie Bohem;)
Clever	I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory. (references; author: unknown)
Movie/TV Titles	Unfamiliar (2002) This Unfamiliar Place (1992)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	A Force Unfamiliar to Me (reference) Art with a Difference: Looking at Difficult and Unfamiliar Art (reference) Camp's Unfamiliar Quotations from 2,000 BC to the Present (reference) Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: The Archaeology of Adaptation (reference) First Christmas: The True and Unfamiliar Story in Words and Pictures (reference) (more book examples)

Music	Unfamiliar Masterpieces (reference) Music from Unfamiliar Highways (reference) Unfamiliar Territory (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Author	Quotation
Hippocrates	The chief virtue that language can have a clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		They are in an unfamiliar place. (references)
		Never touch unfamiliar or wild animals. (references)
		Teach children never to handle unfamiliar animals, wild or domestic, even if they appear friendly. (references)
Business		U.S. companies are generally unfamiliar with China's port industry. (references)
		This is particularly beneficial for foreign firms that are unfamiliar with business conditions in Singapore. (references)
		U.S. suppliers, unfamiliar with the market, require more stringent payment terms, making U.S. products less competitive. (references)
Civil Liberties	Congo	Charges often were brought under the press law; however, the Government had not published the law in 5 years, and many of the judges, as well as the journalists on trial, were unfamiliar with it. Government officials criticized or implicated in fraudulent practices by the press have encouraged police to arrest the journalists responsible for such stories. (references)
Economic History	Botswana	Guaranteeing parts and service may be essential to marketing unfamiliar products. (references)
	China	Demand is greatest for hardwood products, as Chinese consumers are unfamiliar with softwood. (references)
Human Rights	Saudi Arabia	Defense lawyers may offer their clients advice before trial or may attend the trial as interpreters for those unfamiliar with Arabic. (references)
Indigenous People	Panama	Since indigenous populations infrequently master Spanish and are unfamiliar with the country's legal system, they often misunderstand their rights and fail to employ legal channels when threatened. (references)
Political Economy	GERMANY	Standards, Testing, Labeling, and Certification: Germany's regulations and bureaucratic procedures are complex and can prove to be a hurdle for U.S. exporters unfamiliar with the local environment. (references)
Trade	Guyana	Many are still unfamiliar with the new system, sometimes making mistakes that cause lengthy delays. (references)
	Japan	A payment method widely used in Japan but sometimes unfamiliar to U.S. companies is the promissory note (yakusoku tegata). (references)
	Albania	Albanians, generally unfamiliar with banks and distrustful of financial institutions after the 1996-97 collapse of the pyramid schemes, are wary of depositing their savings in banks. (references)
Travel	Ireland	To assure complete understanding, it is well to define unfamiliar terms. (references)
	Botswana	It is dangerous for visitors to travel alone at night on foot in unfamiliar places. (references)
	Egypt	Unfamiliar paperwork processes and bureaucratic procedures make business conduct somewhat slow in Egypt. (references)
Women	Mexico	Many police also are inexperienced in these areas and unfamiliar with appropriate investigative techniques, although some have received training on these issues. (references)
Worker Rights	Ghana	However, child labor laws are not enforced effectively or consistently, and law enforcement officials, including judges, police, and labor officials, often are unfamiliar with the provisions of the law protecting children. (references)
Lexicography	Devil's Dictionary	LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as "obsolete" or "obsolescent" and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and however desirable its restoration to favor -- whereby the process of improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary" -- although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy preservation -- sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion -- the lexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created him to create. God said: "Let Spirit perish into Form," And lexicographers arose, a swarm! Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took, And catalogued each garment in a book. Now, from her leafy covert when she cries: "Give me my clothes and I'll return," they rise And scan the list, and say without compassion: "Excuse us -- they are mostly out of fashion." Sigismund Smith
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speaker	Phrase(s)
Rush Limbaugh	But if the ELF acronym is mostly unfamiliar on the East Coast, it has long been a reference point in the Pacific Northwest for illegal and extreme environmental activism that law enforcement officials call eco-terrorism.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

"Unfamiliar" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Unfamiliar" is used about 827 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	100%	827	8,473

Expressions using "unfamiliar": be unfamiliar with smth. ♦ it's unfamiliar to me ♦ make unfamiliar ♦ unfamiliar with. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "unfamiliar"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		i panjohur (irrecognizable, nameless, new, obscure, sealed, unacquainted, unbeknown, uncelebrated, unco, uncos, unheard, unknown, unknown person, unrecognized), i pamësuar (artless, inexpert, raw, unaccustomed, uncustomary, undisciplined, unlearned, unlettered, unused). (various references)

Arabic		‏غير مألوف (novel, uncommon, uncouth, uninhabitable), ‏غير حسن الإطلاع على, ‏غريب عن, ‏غريب (absurd, alien, anomalous, antic, bizarre, eerie, eery, exotic, extraneous, fanciful, foreign, freakish, funny, grotesque, intruder, ludicrous, new, odd, outlandish, outsider, peculiar, potty, quaint, queer, rum, senseless, singular, strange, stranger, tall, unaccustomed, uncanny, uncouth, unearthly, unnatural, whimsical). (various references)

Bulgarian		чужд (adventitious, adventive, alien, exterior, extraneous, extrinsic, foreign, outside, Peregrin, strange, vicarious), незапознат (unacquainted, ungrounded, uninitiated), непознат (incognizant, new, strange, stranger, unbeknown, unbeknownst, unknown, unrecognized, unseen), неизвестен (nameless, obscure, recondite, strange, suspensive, unbeknown, uncouth, undiscovered, unidentified, unknown, unnoted). (various references)

Chinese		陌�"� (strange), 不熟悉. (various references)

Czech		neznalý èeho, neznámý (nameless, strange, unbeknown, uncertain, unknown), neobvyklý (anomalous, atypical, intriguing, off beat, out of the way, uncommon, uncustomary, undue, unnatural, unusual), neobeznámený, cizí (alien, extraneous, foreign, outlandish, someone else's, strange). (various references)

Dutch		onkundig. (various references)

Farsi		نااشناءی (Unfamiliarity), ناشناخته (Unfamiliarity, Unknown), عجیب (Eccentric, Extravagant, Marvelous, Rummy, Strange, Stupendous, Tremendous, Unco, Unfamiliarity). (various references)

Finnish		tuntematon (strange, unknown), outo (odd, peculiar, strange, unusual). (various references)

French		peu familier, mal connu, inconnu (unbeknown, undetermined, undiscovered, unknown), étrange (uncanny, unusual). (various references)

German		ungewohnt (strange, unaccustomed, unaccustomedly, unused, unusual, unwonted), unbekannt (anonymous, fameless, foreign, nameless, nonfamous, obscure, unacquainted, unavowed, unbeknown, unbeknownly, undistinguished, unheard, unidentified, unknown, unknowns), fremd (alien, different, extraneous, extrinsic, foreign, outside, someone else's, strange, unaccustomed). (various references)

Greek		άσχετοσ (extraneous, inapt, irrelative, irrelevant, irrespective, unconnected, unrelated), άγνωστοσ (stranger, unbeknown, unheard, unidentified, unknown), ασυνήθησ (abnormal, extraordinary, odd, singular, uncommon, unconventional, unusual, unwonted). (various references)

Hebrew		לא מתמצא, זר (alien, foreign, foreigner, outsider, strange, stranger). (various references)

Hungarian		nem ismerõs, ismeretlen (anon, anonymous, faceless, faraway, incognito, it is unknown, little known, nameless, obscure, occult, unacquainted, unbeknown, unco, unheard of, unheard-of, unidentified, unknown). (various references)

Indonesian		tak biasa. (various references)

Italian		sconosciuto (obscure, strange, stranger, unbeknownst, unidentified, unknown), insolito (exceeding, extraordinary, greatly, offbeat, strange, unaccustomed, uncommon, unusual). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		耳� い (hard-of hearing), 耳新しい (hear for the first time, new, novel), 得�"の知れない (mysterious, strange, suspicious), 不馴れ (inexperienced), 一見 (a glimpse, a look, first meeting, glance, never before met). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ふなれ (inexperience, inexperienced, lack of experience, unfamiliarity), いち�'�" (never before met, single word, unitary), みみどおい (hard-of hearing), みみあたらしい (hear for the first time, new, novel), えたいのしれない (mysterious, strange, suspicious). (various references)

Korean		생소한. (various references)

Manx		neuainjyssagh rish (unacquainted), joarree (alien, bizarre, foreign, odd, outlander, outlandish, outsider, peculiar, remarkable, strange, stranger), cha nel oayllagh rish. (various references)

Pig Latin		amiliarunfay

Portuguese		pouco familiar, estranho (alien, awkward, curious, eerie, eery, extraneous, foreign, kinky, mysterious, novel, odd, outlandish, outsider, peculiar, peculiarities, quaint, queer, rum, strange, unaccountable, uncanny, unco, unknown, way out, weird), desconhecido (anonym, nameless, strange, stranger, uncharted, unexplored, unheard, unheard of, unknown, unnoted, unrecognized). (various references)

Romanian		necunoscut (nameless, obscure, out of the way, strange, stranger, unknown). (various references)

Russian		незнакомый (strange, unacquainted, unconversant). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		neupoznat, nepoznat (inconversant, obscure, strange, unaccustomed, unacquainted, unbeknown, unknown), neobavešten (uninformed, unknowing, unposted). (various references)

Spanish		desconocido (all-time, confidential, fameless, inglorious, new-come, newcomer, outsider, strange, stranger, unbeknown, unbeknownst, unidentified, unknowable, unknown, unnamed). (various references)

Swedish		obekant (obscure, stranger, unaccustomed, unacquainted, unknown). (various references)

Turkish		yabancı (alien, exotic, foreign, foreigner, gook, gringo, outlandish, outsider, peregrine, strange, stranger, tramontane, unknown, xeno), tanıdık olmayan, alışılmamış (atypical, unaccustomed, uncommon, unwonted), alışık olmayan (unused to). (various references)

Turkmen		nдbelet (unknown). (various references)

Ukrainian		необізнаний (unacquainted), незвичний (non-conventional, non-natural, novel, strange), незнайомий (new, newcomer, strange, unacquainted). (various references)

Vietnamese		lạ (new-fangled, strange, unco), không quen (unconversant, uninitiated, unseasoned, unwonted), không biết (incognizant, unaware, unknown). (various references)

Welsh		anghynefin (unaccustomed), anghyfarwydd (unskilled), anghydnabyddus. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	inperitos, inperitus. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "unfamiliar": unfamiliarities, unfamiliarity, unfamiliarly. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Unfamiliar" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: infamiliar. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "unfamiliar" (pronounced u'nfumi"lyer)
7	-f u m i" l y er	familiar.
3	-l y er	belier, Collier, espalier, failure, hotelier, peculiar.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-f-i-i-l-m-n-r-u"
	-1 letter: luminaria.
	-2 letters: familiar, filarian, manurial, unifilar.
	-3 letters: airmail, alumina, filaria, laminar, ruminal.
	-4 letters: aimful, airman, alarum, alumin, alumna, alumni, animal, anural, anuria, armful, famuli, farina, faunal, finial, firman, fulmar, infirm, lamina, limina, lumina, manful, manila, manual, marina, marlin, narial, ranula, rumina, unfair, urania, urinal.
	-5 letters: aalii, alarm, amain, amnia, anima, animi, aural, fanum, fauna, filar.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-f-i-i-l-m-n-r-u"
	+2 letters: unfamiliarly.
	+3 letters: unfamiliarity.
	+5 letters: formularization, futilitarianism, unfamiliarities.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.