unavoidable
Americanadjective
adjective
-
unable to be avoided; inevitable
-
law not capable of being declared null and void
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unavoidable
1570–80; un- 1 + avoidable ( def. )
Explanation
Use the adjective unavoidable to describe something that you can't escape or avoid. Going to your family reunion is unavoidable if there's no way for you to get out of it. Obligations are unavoidable, since they are responsibilities that have to be honored. Letting your grandmother pinch your cheek is unavoidable, and paying your rent is also unavoidable. As you get older, it's unavoidable that your knees will get stiffer — there is no way to avoid having this happen. Unavoidable comes from the verb avoid, which is rooted in the Anglo-French avoider, "to clear out or withdraw oneself."
Vocabulary lists containing unavoidable
"Core Curriculum: Introductory Craft Skills," Vocabulary from Module Four
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Shut Up, This Is Serious
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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.
It can come across as polemical and yet somehow unavoidable.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
In the four years since ChatGPT’s breakthrough, generative-text bots have become an unavoidable, discomfiting presence in our most intimate relations—friendships, family ties, romantic prospects.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2026
But the parallels with last year are unavoidable.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
In the 1960s, Hungarian theoretical physicist Frigyes Károlyházy suggested that spacetime may also undergo tiny, unavoidable fluctuations.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026
And they sang even stronger but the guards did not come in, for they had learned that there is no way to avoid the unavoidable.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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.
