different between ferocious vs untaught

English

Etymology

Taken from Latin ferox (“wild, bold, savage, fierce”) (with the suffix -ous), from ferus (“wild, savage, fierce”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f???????s/
• Rhymes: -????s

Adjective

ferocious (comparative more ferocious, superlative most ferocious)

1. Marked by extreme and violent energy.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 376]:

     But it seemed to me that there were few faces like his, with the ferocious profile that brought to mind the Latin word rapax or one of Rouault's crazed death-dealing arbitrary kings.
2. Extreme or intense.

Synonyms

• fierce

Derived terms

• ferociously

Related terms

• ferity
• ferocity
• fierce
• feral

Translations

Further reading

• ferocious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• ferocious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• ferocious at OneLook Dictionary Search

English

Etymology

un- +? taught

Adjective

untaught (comparative more untaught, superlative most untaught)

1. Not taught; uneducated.
   • c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Again?t venemous tongues enpoy?oned with ?claunder and fal?e detractions &c.:

     My ?coles are not for unthriftes untaught,
     For frantick faitours half mad and half ?traught;
     But my learning is of another degree
     To taunt theim like liddrons, lewde as thei bee.

   • 2005, Christine Alexander, Juliet McMaster, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf (page 58)

     The gazing, the spying, and the ability to divine the eternal in the vivid manifestations of nature, here attributed to the young child, seem to be realised in this relatively untaught child of the woods of Oregon.

2. (not comparable) Not taught; not conveyed by means of instruction.
   • 1937, Manly Wade Wellman, School for the Unspeakable

     What they used to teach here
     Now goes untaught.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:ignorant