inexhaustible
Americanadjective
-
not exhaustible; incapable of being depleted.
an inexhaustible supply.
-
untiring; tireless.
an inexhaustible runner.
adjective
-
incapable of being used up; endless
inexhaustible patience
-
incapable or apparently incapable of becoming tired; tireless
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of inexhaustible
1595–1605; < Latin inexhaust ( us ) not exhausted ( see in- 3, exhaust) + -ible
Explanation
When something is inexhaustible, you'll never run out of it. If your grandfather appears to have an inexhaustible supply of nostalgic stories, it seems like he could tell them forever. Unfortunately, if the kids you're babysitting have inexhaustible amounts of energy, they are never going to fall asleep. But if you've got an inexhaustible supply of Disney movies for them to watch, you'll be able to keep them distracted until their parents come home. This adjective combines the prefix in-, "opposite of," and exhaustible, from the Latin exhaurire, "take away, use up, or empty." So when something can't be used up, it's inexhaustible.
Vocabulary lists containing inexhaustible
Jimmy Carter, Speech from July 15, 1979
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Hollow City
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"Watership Down" by Richard Adams, Chapter 43-Epilogue
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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.
She, however, accrued an inexhaustible supply of IOUs.
From Barron's • Dec. 31, 2025
Few people were more agnostically alive than Stoppard, who loved the finer things in life and handsomely earned them with his inexhaustible wit.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 30, 2025
On “Your Show of Shows” and other sketch programs, Sid Caesar mined a comic vein that seemed, in its time, inexhaustible.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
It will find new cures for deadly diseases, solve climate change and invent an inexhaustible supply of clean energy, they argue.
From BBC • Oct. 9, 2025
It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it.
From " The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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.
