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.
“When the Sudden Unintended Braking Defect Occurs, they turn what is supposed to be a safety feature into a frightening and dangerous nightmare.”
From The Verge • Aug. 30, 2022
Books like “Contraceptive Technology and Management of Unintended and Abnormal Pregnancies” enjoy pride of place on her shelf at AltaMed, alongside Christmas photos of her dogs and her niece’s soccer portrait.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 30, 2021
Unintended and teenage pregnancies have decreased to their lowest rates in decades.
From New York Times • Apr. 8, 2020
Unintended consequences of outside intervention scream down the ages.
From The Guardian • Feb. 4, 2019
Unintended gestures, habitual with the experimenter, may suffice to hypnotize his accustomed subject.
From The Story of the Mind by Baldwin, James Mark
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.
