unalterable

American  

[uhn-awl-ter-uh-buhl] / ʌnˈɔl tər ə bəl /

adjective

1. not capable of being altered, changed, or modified.

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unalterable British  

/ ʌnˈɔːltərəbəl, -ˈɔːltrəbəl /

adjective

1. (of a condition, truth, etc) unable to be changed or altered

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Other Word Forms

• unalterability
  noun
• unalterableness
  noun
• unalterably
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of unalterable

First recorded in 1610–15; un- ¹ + alterable

Explanation

You take your dress to the tailor to be altered. He tells you he can't alter it. The dress is unalterable. Something unalterable cannot be changed. Take the prefix un-, meaning "not". Add it to the word alter, meaning "change." Tack on the suffix -able, meaning "possible." The result? Unalterable, "impossible to change." The things you've done in the past are unalterable. The only things you have the power to change are the things you're doing right now or that you will do in the future. How can you alter things that haven't happened yet? Good question. For all we know, they're unalterable too.

Example Sentences

We are the Unalterable, the Irresistible, the Irresponsible, the Inevitable.

From Back to Methuselah by Shaw, Bernard

Unalterable, un-awl′tėr-a-bl, adj. not capable of alteration or change.—ns.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various

I must with plainness speak my fixt resolve Unalterable; lest I hear from each The same long murmur'd melancholy tale.

From The Iliad of Homer Translated into English Blank Verse by William Cowper by Cowper, William

Within the case was a small heart cut in paper, which I also have; on one side was written, "Je ne change qu'en mourant;" on the other, "Unalterable to my Perdita through life."

From Beaux and Belles of England Mrs. Mary Robinson, Written by Herself, With the lives of the Duchesses of Gordon and Devonshire by Robinson, Mary