unremitting
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- unremittingly adverb
- unremittingness noun
Etymology
Origin of unremitting
First recorded in 1670–80; un- 1 + remit ( def. ) + -ing 2 ( def. )
Explanation
During a heat wave, it's not always the temperature itself that's a problem. It's that the heat is unremitting––you don't get a break from it. It's sweltering hot day after day after day. You'd think the word unremitting would be connected to the word remit, but that's true in only a loose way. Remit means to send back––but if you remit a debt, you forgive it, or lift it. Unremitting describes something that is never lifted or sent back. Like the Energizer Bunny, it keeps coming and coming and coming.
Vocabulary lists containing unremitting
Send a Message: Mit and Miss
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Beowulf
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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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.
An unremitting tragedy that permanently altered our lives — where little meaning can be derived and which even less justice has been served.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 25, 2025
"In the future, our hope is that machine learning algorithms like ours could help patients' treatment teams respond fast to new or unremitting episodes in order to limit negative impact."
From Science Daily • Nov. 25, 2024
Simon Foster, the Labour West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, said he was "committed to constant and unremitting action to prevent, tackle and reduce knife crime, to protect people and save lives".
From BBC • Oct. 12, 2023
Libya has a history of unremitting hostility toward Israel.
From Washington Times • Aug. 29, 2023
This unremitting, compulsive repellence is a kind of complicated ritual.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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.
