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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

beknownst en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /bɪˈnoʊnst/

Etymology

Probably a back-formation from unbeknownst.

Meanings

  1. (colloquial, followed by the preposition to, not-comparable) Known (about); in (someone's) awareness.
    • The if he was n't hiding' here beknownst to you, he must have changed his mind agin and got away by the embarcadero. 1887, Bret Harte, A Blue Grass Penelope:
    • Then for reasons best beknownst to him, the batman took note of the woman's presence and then tried to shrug off the glamour o’ sea. 2008, Miles Hawke, The Dragonnade, →ISBN, page 56:
    • Axin' yer pardin, Misther O'Brien, but 'tis well beknownst to a jintleman of your exthraordinady mintal an' quizzical fackilties that the consthruction of the words consthitutes the differ of langwidged, of which pothooks an' hangers is the ilimints. 1854, Sylvanus Urban, “A Great Mulrooney Story”, in Godey's Lady Book:
    • Upon her 21 birthday as she had asked the gypsy came to her with her book of spells and on the rising of the night star she did take Angelique deep into the woods where beknownst to only them she performed a ritual so old and ancient that most of her own kind no longer knew it existed. 2003, K.S. McCoy, My Mind's Eye, →ISBN, page 37:
    • Little beknownst to either of them, they were being followed by a very clumsy, wet, and muddy-pawed mutt, the Cassidy hound. 2011, Edward F. Cassidy, Looking Back on Tomorrow: A Life Story, →ISBN, page 111: