ineradicable
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ineradicable
First recorded in 1810–20; in- 3 + eradicable
Explanation
When it's impossible to change or eliminate something, it's ineradicable. Unfortunately, your dad's ineradicable dislike of furry animals means you'll have to wait until you have a place of your own to get that dog you dream of. The adjective ineradicable comes from eradicate, which means "totally destroy," and the prefix in-, "opposite of." So when something's ineradicable, whether it's a quality like hostility or a situation like inequality, there's just no way to destroy it. Though negative things are most often described as ineradicable, you can also praise your friend's ineradicable optimism or admire your teacher's ineradicable enthusiasm.
Vocabulary lists containing ineradicable
Nickel and Dimed
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"Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife," Vocabulary from the literary criticism
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"Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife" by Francine Prose
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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.
Here is Strout at her most emotionally precise, capturing a universal human longing in a single ineradicable image.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
Social media can efficiently make any lunatic theory an ineradicable and ever-evolving virus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026
How should millennial, liberal democracies balance legitimate national pride with an ineradicable legacy of wrongs done to indigenous peoples?
From Washington Times ● Jan. 26, 2023
But it was a formative age, and those sensations had lodged somewhere ineradicable, waiting to be awakened.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 28, 2022
At a time when mental illness carried a deep and almost ineradicable stigma, Elizebeth refused to let it create a chasm between her and her husband.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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.
