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.
The image remains inescapable for Parry as it reappears with every anniversary and retelling of the Aberfan disaster.
From BBC • May 10, 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
This constant bickering only leads to an inescapable level of discourse that serves the false perception of Fennell as the raging provocateur she is not.
From Salon • Feb. 23, 2026
With so much death and dying in Vietnam, Kelley’s conviction that he would die in Vietnam grew until it hung over him like an inevitable, inescapable destiny.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
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.
