An Unseen Was a Passage You Had Never Read
Unseen means not observed. In British schools it was also a noun: a passage set for translation that the pupil had not prepared.
Unseen means not seen or not noticed. British education used it as a noun for two centuries: an *unseen* was a Latin or Greek passage given in an examination without warning, to be translated on sight. Generations of schoolchildren dreaded them, and English literature exams still set *unseen* poems.
- Not observed. *An unseen visitor.*
- Invisible. *Unseen forces.*
- An unprepared passage. *A Latin unseen.*
- Sight unseen — without inspecting first. *He bought it sight unseen.*
- Unseen poetry — an exam format. *The unseen poetry question.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Adjective | unseen | Unseen damage. |
| Noun | unseen | A difficult unseen. |
| Opposite | seen | Widely seen. |
| Related | unforeseen | Unforeseen delays. |
| Idiom | sight unseen | Bought sight unseen. |
- The damage went unseen for months.Adjective.
- The unseen was a passage of Thucydides.Education, historical.
- They bought the flat sight unseen.The idiom.
Unseen or unforeseen?
- Unseen — not observed
- Unforeseen — not predicted
- A common slip — writing unseen circumstances for unforeseen ones
- Foresee — to see in advance; unforeseen is its negative
- Test — if you mean nobody expected it, you want unforeseen
From *un-* plus the past participle of *see*, Old English *seon*. The educational noun is nineteenth-century British usage.
What does sight unseen mean?
Agreeing to buy something without inspecting it first. The phrase is fixed and does not take an article.
What is an unseen in an exam?
A passage the candidate has not studied, set for translation or analysis on the spot.