anonymous

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She sits in an anonymous hotel lobby in central London having fled Russia to seek political asylum in Britain—Independent, 2007.

Anonymous is so widely used in its extended meaning 'having no distinguishing or remarkable features', making it a synonym of nondescript or characterless rather than of nameless, that the primary meaning 'having no name' can be compromised. Obviously, in the example above, the hotel lobby, or the hotel at least, has a name, and so the intended meaning is clear, but this may not always be the case:

Luckily I was in the company of a celebrity, drunk on gin and an anonymous beauty, drunk on celebrity—Fresh Yarn, American English 2005.

Did the writer know the beauty's name?

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(1) Nameless. See anonymous post and anonymous Web surfing.

(2) (Anonymous) A loose, underground hacker community that attempts to bring down or damage Web sites of organizations and government agencies that are not socially responsible. Advocating freedom, fairness and justice, Anonymous became known to the public in a 2007 Los Angeles TV report and has since claimed responsibility for numerous break-ins. In 2010, it hacked PayPal, MasterCard and Visa for no longer accepting donations to WikiLeaks after the site disclosed U.S. military documents. See WikiLeaks.

The Guy Fawkes Mask

Anonymous adopted a mask created to honor Guy Fawkes as a symbol of rebellion in the 2005 movie "V for Vendetta." Fawkes was in charge of the gunpowder in a failed 1605 plot to blow up Parliament and restore a Catholic monarchy to England. About to be hanged to near death and then disemboweled, Fawkes jumped from the gallows and did himself in. In 1606, Parliament turned the foiled Gunpowder Plot into a national holiday.

Anonymous "Reconnect" Rally

In Amsterdam in 2008, Anonymous objected to Scientology ordering its members to "disconnect" with anyone not supportive of their beliefs. (Image courtesy of photographer John Melskens.)

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adjective

Having an unknown name or author: nameless, unnamed, unsigned. See knowledge/ignorance.

adj

Definition: unknown, usually by choice
Antonyms: identified, known, named

IN BRIEF: An act performed by a person who withholds his or her identity.

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth-anonymously and posthumously. — Thomas Sowell

LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!

For a list of words related to anonymous, see:

• Books and Pages - anonymous: (adj) published with no author’s name; written by unknown author
• Literary Characters and Practitioners - anonymous: ascription on work of unknown authorship
• Introverted, Reserved, Isolated, or Mysterious

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See words rhyming with "anonymous."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Anonymous.

Dansk (Danish)
adj. - anonym, unavngiven

Nederlands (Dutch)
anoniem

Français (French)
adj. - anonyme

Deutsch (German)
adj. - anonym

Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - ανώνυμος

Italiano (Italian)
anonimo

Português (Portuguese)
adj. - anônimo, desconhecido, pseudônimo

Русский (Russian)
анонимный

Español (Spanish)
adj. - anónimo, anónimamente

Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - anonym

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
作者不详的, 佚名的, 无名的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 作者不詳的, 佚名的, 無名的

한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 작자 불명의, 특성이 없는

日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 匿名の, 作者不明の, 名もない

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(صفه) غي مسمى, مجهول, مجهول المصدر‏

עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - ‮אלמוני, אנונימי‬

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Some good "anonymous" pages on the web: