inconvenient
Americanadjective
-
not easily accessible or at hand.
The phone is in an inconvenient place.
-
inopportune; untimely.
an inconvenient time for a visit.
-
not suiting one's needs or purposes.
The house has an inconvenient floor plan.
- Synonyms:
- bothersome, awkward, annoying
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of inconvenient
1325–75; Middle English < Latin inconvenient- (stem of inconveniēns ) not suiting. See in- 3, convenient
Explanation
Inconvenient things are difficult or annoying to do. If someone asks you to help move a couch on a Saturday when you have tickets to a game, that's an inconvenient request. If you have to go to the bathroom very badly just as a test is starting, that's inconvenient. If the movie projector breaks in the middle of a movie, that's inconvenient. Other times, things are inconvenient just because they're kind of a pain. It’s inconvenient of your mom to ask you to do chores just as you're ready to go out with friends. Inconvenient things get in the way of what we really want to do.
Vocabulary lists containing inconvenient
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Inconvenient and damaging as the outages were, my family managed to find warmth in the cold.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 25, 2025
Inconvenient for customers, outages come at a cost to the banks, too.
From BBC • Jun. 6, 2025
Dubbing it “An Inconvenient Truth” in a seeming nod to Vice President Al Gore’s classic 2006 documentary about climate change, Crusius said that “water sheds around the country, especially in agricultural areas, are being depleted.”
From Salon • Dec. 2, 2024
It turns out I was watching “An Inconvenient Truth” with Al Gore.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 15, 2024
Sometimes Inconvenient "From the Loophole of Retreat to Peep at Such a World" XXXIII.
From Queechy by Warner, Susan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
