unintended
Britishadjective
Explanation
If you do something without planning or meaning to do it, it's unintended. An unintended consequence of your fun day at the beach is your painful, peeling sunburn. To intend is to plan or aim to do something. When you don't intend to do something but it happens anyway, it's unintended. An unintended side effect of your winning the 50-yard dash might be the extreme envy of your sister, who's very athletic and loves to win. And if you let her trim your hair later, you may just end up with unintended bangs!
Vocabulary lists containing unintended
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.
And redesigning a process with AI requires establishing entirely new checks and balances to ensure the effort doesn’t inadvertently skew key performance indicators or lead to unintended outcomes, Lavu said.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 5, 2026
Légère says he's worried about the unintended consequences of the law, which was passed after an Ontario court found that limiting citizenship rights to only the first-generation was unconstitutional.
From BBC • May 1, 2026
But the passage of Measure G had the unintended effect of wiping out Measure J, which funds anti-incarceration programs, leaving county officials scrambling for solutions.
From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2026
Former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s Workers’ Rights Bill in 2025 had the unintended effect of discouraging employers from making permanent hires and instead incentivizing them to take workers on as sub-contractors.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 15, 2026
The old walrus in fact managed to instill in me a great and burning ambition; it had simply found expression in an unintended pursuit.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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.
