Standard Lemma guide

unread

adj · noun · verb · 6 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • /ˈʌn.ɹɛd/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • homophone: unred
  • rhymes with -ɛd (adjective and noun)
  • /ˈʌn.ɹiːd/
  • rhymes with -iːd (verb)
  • CMU ARPABET: AH0 N R EH1 D Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Not having been read.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: not-comparable

Examples

  • 1700, Charles Hopkins, The Art of Love, (after Ovid’s Ars Amatoria), London: Joseph Wild, “The Muse,” p. 36, At first, perhaps, unread your Note’s return’d, Your Person slighted, and your Passion scorn’d.
  • The book I got for my 18th birthday remained unread until my retirement.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

adj

Meaning 2

Not having read; uneducated.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: not-comparable

Examples

  • 1796, Elizabeth Inchbald, Nature and Art, Dublin: P. Wogan et al., Chapter 22, p. 111, The only child of two doating parents, she never had been taught the necessity of resignation—untutored, unread, unused to reflect, but knowing how to feel [...]
  • 1890, Frances Willard, Address before the Seventeenth Convention of the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union at Atlanta, Georgia, in William Jennings Bryan (editor), The World’s Famous Orations, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906, Volume 10, p. 162, [...] only those unread in the biography of genius imagine themselves to be original.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

An unread email or instant message.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: computing, engineering, mathematics, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

4

verb

Meaning 4

To undo the process of reading.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: transitive

Examples

  • That book was terrible! I wish I could unread it.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

5

verb

Meaning 5

To flag (a previously read e-mail or similar message) as not having been read.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: transitive

Topics: computing, engineering, mathematics, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, sciences

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

6

adjective satellite

Meaning 6

not informed through reading- V.L.Parrington

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • he seems to have been wholly unread in political theory

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Germanic *un- Proto-West Germanic *un- Old English un- Middle English un- English un- English read English unread From un- + read.

Across languages

Translations

11 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Bulgarian: непрочетен (nepročeten) — not having been read
  • Dutch: ongelezen — not having been read
  • Esperanto: nelegita — not having been read
  • Hungarian: olvasatlan — not having been read
  • Japanese: 未読 (midoku) — not having been read
  • Latin: illectus — not having been read
  • Polish: nieprzeczytany — not having been read
  • Swedish: oläst — not having been read
  • Bulgarian: необразован (neobrazovan) — uneducated
  • Romanian: necitit — uneducated
  • Swedish: obeläst — uneducated