unknown quantity

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

unknown quantity (plural unknown quantities)

1. (idiomatic) A person or thing whose nature or value is a mystery.

   Antonyms: known quantity, household name

   • 1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter I, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 14:

     Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.

   • 1907, The Bookman, volume 25, page 166:

     . . . the Evening Post of this city to refer to him recently as "the young Belgian painter," and to the general public he is an unknown quantity.

   • 1963 June, “Beyond the Channel: France: High-power diesels”, in Modern Railways, page 417:

     The big French diesel is something of an unknown quantity, whereas many French-built electric locomotives developing 3,000 h.p. and more have been well proved in service.

   • 1971, Lyndon Johnson, “"I feel like I have already been here a year"”, in The Vantage Point‎^[1], Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 18:

     In spite of more than three decades of public service, I knew I was an unknown quantity to many of my countrymen and to much of the world when I assumed office.

   • 1982 September 22, Henry Tanner, “Gemayel Brothers Assessed in Syria”, in New York Times, retrieved 9 January 2016:

     Amin Gemayel, it is felt here, is an unknown quantity and it is impossible to predict how he will act.

   • 2015 December 6, “Congratulations on 10 years, David Cameron - but don't rest on your laurels”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 9 January 2016:

     [H]e was still an unknown quantity – a young, untested figure.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see unknown,‎ quantity.
   • 2012 January 1, Richard N. Aufmann, Joanne Lockwood, Beginning Algebra‎^[2], Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 77:

     Many of the applications of mathematics require that you identify an unknown quantity, assign a variable to that quantity, and then attempt to express another unknown quantity in terms of that variable.

   • 2016, Steve Pace, The Projects of Skunk Works: 75 Years of Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs‎^[3], Voyageur Press, →ISBN, page 145:

     So promising was the Skunk Works' stealth cruise missile offering, the USAF ordered an unknown quantity of these missiles under a highly classified program dubbed Senior Prom.

Synonyms

• blank canvas, enigma

See also

• quesitive

References

• “unknown quantity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.