indelibly
Americanadverb
Explanation
When something happens or is done indelibly, it can't be erased or removed. If you label your sleeping bag indelibly with your name, you do it in permanent ink. A memory might be indelibly etched in your mind — in other words, it's there for good. And when a serial number is indelibly engraved on your new computer, it can't be removed. Indelibly comes from the Latin indelebilis, a combination of in-, "not," and delebilis, "able to be destroyed," which is rooted in delere, "destroy or blot out."
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.
If Ms. Noem lets her bureaucracy support his deportation, the Secretary will indelibly mar her legacy.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 9, 2026
She's arguably the most famous woman in Scotland, indelibly linked to her party.
From BBC • Mar. 20, 2025
And his voice call on the Freeman walk-off grand slam and the Walker Buehler final strike will forever be indelibly stamped in the Dodger history of success and achievement.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 9, 2024
As Mintz’s book makes indelibly clear, the cost that it exacted upon the songwriter’s relationships was considerable.
From Salon • Oct. 25, 2024
Old friends could pick him out of a dismissed battalion, so singular was his walk, so indelibly a part of him, and he could change it no more than he could change his blood type.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
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.
