irretrievably
Americanadverb
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 describes Poly as both ever-present and irretrievably gone — an absence that structured the family, then fractured it when he finally joins them thanks to the Mariel boatlift of 1980.
From Los Angeles Times • May 19, 2026
A column here last week reminded readers that the U.S. faced a similar dilemma in 1945: how to convince a battered and irretrievably weakened Japan that the war was over.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 13, 2026
“It could be in no danger … or it could already be irretrievably lost.”
From MarketWatch • Feb. 4, 2026
The jury at Swansea Crown Court began deliberations on Tuesday, but were discharged on Wednesday morning, with Judge Paul Thomas KC saying the trial had been "irretrievably compromised".
From BBC • Oct. 9, 2024
I never forgot that schooling had irretrievably changed my family’s life.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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.
