unexplored

Etymology

It is formed from English un- + explored, the past participle of explore.^[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not explored: 1697, in Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid.^[2] Etymonline dates the word to the 1690s, in any sense of "not explored".^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) gave two senses, "not searched out", with a quotation from Pope, and "not tried; not known", with Dryden's line about flying "to regions unexplor'd".^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged separates the general sense, not looked into or investigated, from the specific one, not travelled over for the purpose of geographical discovery.^[4] The OED records the derived noun unexploredness.^[2]

Timeline

• 1697 – not explored, in Dryden's Aeneid.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not yet travelled through or surveyed for the purpose of geographical discovery: an unexplored stretch of the coast.^[4][6]
2. Not yet looked into or investigated: Several of her letters remain unexplored by historians.^[4][5]

Related words

• explore
• exploration

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins