unthought

English

Etymology

From un- +‎ thought. Compare Old English unþanc (“disfavour, displeasure, anger, ill-will”).

Noun

unthought (plural unthoughts)

1. That which has not been (yet) thought; that which has yet to enter into the mind; a non-existent thought.
   • 2011, Jean-Bernard Ouédraogo, Carlos Cardoso, Readings in Methodology:

     But without his knowing, they interfere with his research and at the very least call on him to put the results in perspective. This is what we call the “unthoughts” of scientific work.

   • 2012, Ms Patricia MacCormack, Cinesexuality:

     There is no tapping into some stream of desire yet to be revealed. Desire through cinemasochism resonates again with traditional masochism in the vertigo of being faced with an unthought that cannot be thought and a desire that cannot know itself […]

   • 2013, David Owen, Maturity and Modernity:

     Modern thought renounces the pure transparency of the Cartesian cogito in the recognition that the cogito is intrinsically tied to an unthought which escapes the reflection of the cogito even as it makes this reflection possible.

   • 2014, Assoc for Hispanic Theological Education, A Legacy of Fifty Years:

     Given the power of the word, our lack of control over the word once it is spoken, and our even greater lack once it is published, I have often wondered: What may have been the consequences of my many published unthoughts?

Verb

unthought

1. simple past and past participle of unthink

Adjective

unthought (not comparable)

1. Not having been thought.
   • 1995, Jane Ellwood, Psychosis: Understanding and Treatment, page 78:

     For Bion it is not thinking which produces thoughts but unthought thoughts which require an apparatus for thinking them.

Related terms

• unthought-of