Spanish Word of the Day Archive
Thursday June 14, 2007

Today's Word | Yesterday's Word | Previous Words | Subscribe for Free | Help

ignorar, verb:
not to know; to ignore

Like many Spanish words, ignorar shares one of its meanings with its English cousin, ignore, but also has a second meaning, not to know. Journalists often use it in this second meaning:

Por el momento se ignoran los motivos del accidente.
For the time being the reasons for the accident are unknown.

You also often use ignorar in the first person in more formal speech.

Ignoro si dichos papeles son auténticos ...
I don’t know if the papers mentioned are authentic ...

The other meaning is to ignore:

Es mejor ignorarla.
It’s best to ignore her.

Content By
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2006. All rights reserved.