nescience

nes•ci•ence (NESH-uhns, NESH-ee-uhns, NES-ee-)  n

Definition:
absence of knowledge or awareness; ignorance

nescient adjective

Origin:
1612; from L.L. nescientia, from nesciens prp. of nescire, from ne "not" + scire "to know"

Related:
Synonyms: ignorance, illiteracy, incomprehension, inscience, sciolism
Related Words: sciolist, prescience, conscience, science, inscience

Sentence Examples:
• Only a man who knows nothing of motors talks of motoring without petrol; only a man who knows nothing of reason talks of reasoning without strong, undisputed first principles. Here he had no strong first principles. Flambeau had been missed at Harwich; and if he was in London at all, he might be anything from a tall tramp on Wimbledon Common to a tall toast-master at the Hotel Metropole. In such a naked state of nescience, Valentin had a view and a method of his own.  -The Innocence of Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton

• These tribes, socially less advanced than the Arunta, have not the Arunta nescience of the facts of procreation, a nescience which I regard as merely the consequence and corollary of the Arunta philosophy of reincarnation. -The Euahlayi Tribe, K. Langloh Parker

• It is wise in them, to keep them in abject ignorance, for the strong man armed must be bound before we can spoil his house--the powerful intellect of man must be bound down with the iron chains of nescience before we can rob him of his rights as a man; we must reduce him to a thing before we can claim the right to set our feet upon his neck, because it was only all things which were originally put under the feet of man by the Almighty and Beneficent Father of all, who has declared himself to be no respecter of persons, whether red, white or black. -An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, Angelina Emily Grimke

The Storyline
She understood that it just his fear and nescience, but it was still annoying.

Sources: Free Dictionary, Online Etymology

Word-E: A Word-A-Day