unsay
Americanverb (used with object)
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unsays,
present (3rd person singular)
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unsaid,
past participle, past
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unsaying
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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unsaysimple
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unsayssimple
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have unsaidperfect
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has unsaidperfect
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am unsayingprogressive
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are unsayingprogressive
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is unsayingprogressive
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have been unsayingperfect progressive
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has been unsayingperfect progressive
Past
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unsaidsimple
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had unsaidperfect
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was unsayingprogressive
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were unsayingprogressive
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had been unsayingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of unsay
First recorded in 1425–75, unsay is from the late Middle English word unsayen. See un- 2, say 1
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.
See Examples For:
Yet he can’t unsay what was said on the audio tape.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 13, 2018
This is the reality-TV kind of reality where, in post-production, you can unsay anything.
From Washington Post ● May 4, 2018
And then they unsay it, and they keep unsaying it, breaking their own rules over and over again.
From The Guardian ● May 13, 2017
Galliano can’t unsay or undo the gross, offensive things that happened two years ago.
From Salon ● Jan. 18, 2013
Now that I’ve thought it and said it, I can’t unthink it and unsay it.
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
Lethem’s revisionist project ultimately unsays as much as it says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2023
She unsays her words, she gives herself the lie, she says to the children, “Be old!”
From La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages by Jules Michelet
"Marry him without a word against it to dread from me—so long as he unsays the words and undoes the deeds which have thrown a doubt on the marriage of Arnold and Blanche."
From Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins
There is something half laughable and half provoking in the facility with which he asserts and retracts, says and unsays, exactly as suits his argument.
From Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay
Mr. Hughes forgets—or does he forget?—that in the sequel to this poem, entitled Sixty Years After, Tennyson unsays all the high-pitched dispraise of Amy and her squire.
From Flowers of Freethought (Second Series) by G. W. (George William) Foote
But perhaps the most revealing question is what Sonia's memoir will choose to say - and what it will leave unsaid.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
And with that veil ripped off, every emotion they didn’t let themselves feel, every word left unsaid, every last regret, all become instantly magnified, sprawling out before them on an endless road.
From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026
Left unsaid was whether Tehran is prepared to permanently drop its demand that it should be able to collect tolls from transiting commercial vessels and if those negotiations would lead to a fully reopened waterway.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
Or is that a conversation better left unsaid?
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
The words left unsaid were heavier on his heart.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
And then they unsay it, and they keep unsaying it, breaking their own rules over and over again.
From The Guardian ● May 13, 2017
And how was that unsaying to be accomplished?
From The Vicar of Bullhampton by Anthony Trollope
He could not conceive of the Titan "unsaying his high language, and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary."
From Percy Bysshe Shelley by John Addington Symonds
Do you know, I almost feel tempted to give way to this Martinmas summer of love, to stultify my past by unsaying and undoing everything.
From The Woman Who Did by Grant Allen
Man saying one thing now, unsaying it anon, Breaking all Engagements, when deeds for him are done.
From The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer by Lewis Henry Berens
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.
