unseen

adjective

1. 1

   Not seen or discovered; invisible.

   You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.

   Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.

   When night had fallen, the she-demon stole forth toward the hall, which she entered unheard and unseen.

   Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet. Perhaps we assume that our name, address and search preferences will be viewed by some unseen pair of corporate eyes, probably not human, and don't mind that much.

2. 2

   Unskilled; inexperienced.

3. 3

   Not hitherto noticed; unobserved.

   I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.

   The advent of COVID passports, so soon after increased check-in bureaucracy post-Brexit, brought major logistical ramifications to St Pancras International, of a kind unseen at any other major station in Britain.

verb

1. 1

   Also a form of unseepast participle of unsee

   What has been seen cannot be unseen.

noun

1. 1

   An examination involving material not previously seen or studied.

   I have French and Latin unseens this summer.

Forms

plural

unseens