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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

anonymous.

Lacking a name; not named, for example an animal not assigned to any species .

9 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/əˈnɒn.ə.məs/UK/əˈnɑ.nə.məs/Canada, US/əˈnɔn.ə.məs/Australia
  1. Lacking a name; not named, for example an animal not assigned to any species .

    not-comparable
  2. Without any name acknowledged of a person responsible.

    not-comparable
    an anonymous pamphlet
    an anonymous subscription
  3. Of unknown name; whose name is withheld

    not-comparable
    an anonymous author
    an anonymous benefactor
  4. Lacking individuality.

    comparable · figuratively
    an anonymous office block in a soulless industrial estate
Where this word comes from

Borrowed into English around 1600 from Late Latin anonymus, from Ancient Greek ᾰ̓νώνῠμος (ănṓnŭmos, “without name”), from ᾰ̓ν- (ăn-, “un-”) with ὄνῠμᾰ (ónŭmă), Aeolic and Doric dialectal form of ὄνομᾰ (ónomă, “name”). English equivalent anonym + -ous, its full etymology being an- + -onym + -ous.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.