terra incognita
noun
-in-ˈkäg-nə-tə
Did you know?
When Roman mapmakers drew a land area that no one had yet explored, they often labeled it "Terra Incognita"—that is, "Unknown Territory"—and the term continued to be used for centuries afterward. When Columbus and his successors first crossed the Atlantic, they entered upon terra incognita, a land that came to be called the "New World". But the term is just as useful for mental exploration. For most of us, subjects such as particle physics, French 17th-century drama, and soil mechanics are terra incognita, and we can only hope to live long enough to be able to explore some of them someday.
Examples of terra incognita in a Sentence
Michael Oppenheimer, Foreign Affairs, 13 Oct. 2020
Rush’s cohort sets sail for terra incognita not to explore or extract but to collaborate on solving a serious problem: the collapse of the widest glacier in the world.
—Emily Raboteau, The New York Review of Books, 1 Nov. 2020
For four decades, Libya has been largely terra incognita, a place where the outsized personality of its quixotic leader and a byzantine bureaucracy obscured an informal network of constantly shifting power brokers.
—Frederic Wehrey, Foreign Affairs, 28 Feb. 2011
But there will be places that read like terra incognita.
—Bhopi Dhall and Saurajit Kanungo, Forbes, 12 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for terra incognita 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'terra incognita.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near terra incognita
Cite this Entry
“Terra incognita.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terra%20incognita. Accessed 18 Aug. 2024.
Copy Citation
Share