inescapable
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of inescapable
First recorded in 1785–95; in- 3 + escapable ( def. )
Explanation
Something that's inescapable is impossible to get away from. A reluctant swimmer may stop trying to talk his mom out of making him go to swimming lessons once he realizes that learning to swim is inescapable. Any force or occurrence or duty that you just can't avoid is inescapable. Feeling angry at people you love sometimes is inescapable, and children growing older is also inescapable. The adjective combines the prefix in, or "not, the opposite of," with escapable, which comes from the Vulgar Latin word excappare, literally "get out of one's cape," or "leave a pursuer holding just one's cape."
Vocabulary lists containing inescapable
The Honest Truth
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Winger
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"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens
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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.
When Lindsay explains, Peggy March, long widowed herself, consoles her with the inescapable truth of love: “You’re either left or you leave.”
From The Wall Street Journal • May 15, 2026
Your TV and smartphone are far more interoperable and indistinguishable than ever before, and an inescapable user-tracking singularity is developing, accordingly, in your own living room.
From Slate • May 3, 2026
There was a rich businessman whose free-spending ad blitz made him inescapable on the airwaves.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 25, 2026
If the situation remained the same in that time, "then I think that's inescapable", he said.
From BBC • Mar. 22, 2026
Reading the paper, he must have felt that inescapable chill of déjà vu running through his spine: the “certain Mendel” had certainly preempted de Vries by more than three decades.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
