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.
The “Lanterns” showrunner remained coy when asked whether this lantern’s more ominous origins could lead to any unintended consequences for Stewart.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026
Misalignment is a term used by AI companies and researchers to describe instances where an AI tool did something that it was not trained to do or was otherwise unintended.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2026
It has been desperate to avoid a ban, warning that it risked creating a cascade of unintended consequences that would throttle supplies of diesel and gasoline in the U.S. and lead to spiking prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026
Chason Gordon investigates the rise of produce bred for perfection, and argues that there are unintended consequences to making fruit too delicious.
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2026
His life seems at once to be a tale by Horatio Alger, a fulfillment of the American dream, and a warn- ing about unintended consequences.
From "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" by Eric Schlosser
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.
