Unbeknownst is an irregular variant of the older
unbeknown, which derives from
beknown, an obsolete synonym of
known. But for a word with a straightforward history,
unbeknownst and the now less common
unbeknown
have caused quite a stir among usage commentators. In spite of
widespread use (including
appearances in the writings of Charles
Dickens, A. E. Housman, and E. B. White), the grammarian H. W. Fowler in
1926 categorized the two words as "out of use except in dialect or
uneducated speech." The following year, G. P. Krapp called them
"humorous, colloquial, and dialectal." Our evidence, however, shows that
both words are standard even in formal prose.
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