inviolate
Americanadjective
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free from violation, injury, desecration, or outrage.
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undisturbed; untouched.
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not infringed.
adjective
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free from violation, injury, disturbance, etc
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a less common word for inviolable
Other Word Forms
- inviolacy noun
- inviolately adverb
- inviolateness noun
Etymology
Origin of inviolate
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin inviolātus unhurt, inviolable. See in- 3, violate
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.
Because this crosses a line you maintain is inviolate, you might consider taking a trial separation while your husband works on his issues.
From Washington Post
A last bastion of privacy, our brains have remained inviolate, even as sensors now record our heartbeats, breaths, steps and sleep.
From Scientific American
I was able to restore truer ways of feeling to certain memories that a younger, more fearful self had falsified and that the passage of time had made inviolate.
From New York Times
It was an illegal homestead carved by settlers out of a 550-square-mile Indigenous reserve that is meant to be inviolate.
From New York Times
Part of her argument is that the distinction between individuals and culture isn’t inviolate; they nurture each other, for better and for worse.
From New York Times
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.
