Unnoticed

How to spell unnoticed

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce unnoticed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unnoticed mean?

1. adjectiveNot seen, observed, or remarked upon.

Unnoticed in a sentence

• The small error in the report went completely unnoticed until the audit.

• He slipped out of the meeting early and hoped to remain unnoticed.

Where does unnoticed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from the prefix un-, an old native English negator meaning 'not', attached to 'notice', which English borrowed in the late 1300s through Old French 'notice' from the Latin 'notitia', meaning 'a being known' or 'acquaintance'. That Latin noun grew from 'notus', the past participle of 'noscere', meaning 'to come to know', the same root family that gives us 'note', 'notion', and 'notable'. The combined form 'unnoticed', meaning something that has not been observed or remarked upon, appears in English from around the early 1600s. The spelling trap lives at the seam: 'un' ends in n and 'notice' begins with n, so the word genuinely carries a doubled n, and the silent final e of 'notice' is swallowed when '-ed' is added. Remembering that it is simply 'un' plus 'noticed' keeps both the double n and the single trailing d in place.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• notice (from Latin notitia: knowledge, being known)
• -ed (adjective suffix)