Ignore: The English meaning of 'ignore'… | etymologist.ai
ignore
/ɪɡˈnɔːr/·verb·1611·Established
Origin
From Latin 'ignōrāre' (not to know) — English shifted passive unawareness to deliberate disregard: choosing not to know.
Definition
To refuse to take notice of or acknowledge; to deliberately pay no attention to.
The Full Story
Latin17th centurywell-attested
From Latin ignōrāre (to notknow, to be unacquainted with, to take no notice of), built from the negative prefix in- (not) and Old Latin gnōrāre (to know), from PIE *ǵneh₃- (to know, to recognise). Thefullgenealogy: PIE *ǵneh₃- → Old Latin gnōrāre → in- + gnōrāre → ignōrāre → French ignorer → English. The samePIE root *ǵneh₃- generated one of the richest
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TheEnglishmeaning of 'ignore' (to deliberately disregard) is quite different from the original Latin 'ignōrāre' (to simply not know). French still preserves the older sense: 'j'ignore son nom' means 'I don't know his name,' not 'I'm choosing to disregard his name.' English shifted the word from passive not-knowing to active refusal — making
clusters in English: know (Old English cnāwan), knowledge, acknowledge, can (originally to know how), cunning (originally knowing), noble (from Latin gnobilis, known, of known birth), notice (from Latin nōtus, known), notify, notion, notorious, and recognise. Greek
the word: to ignore in modern English is not to fail to know but to refuse to acknowledge what one already knows. This semantic shift from passive ignorance to active dismissal happened gradually between the 16th and 18th centuries, as the word moved from intellectual contexts into social ones. Key roots: in- (Latin: "not (negative prefix)"), gnōrāre (Latin (archaic): "to know"), *ǵneh₃- (Proto-Indo-European: "to know").