Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Not to be avoided or escaped; inevitable: "Those war plans rested on a belief in the ineluctable superiority of the offense over the defense” ( Jack Beatty).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not to be overcome or escaped from.
Wiktionary
- adj. Impossible to avoid or escape; inescapable, irresistible.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not to be overcome by struggling; irresistible; inescapable; inevitable.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. impossible to avoid or evade:
Etymologies
- Latin inēluctābilis : in-, not; see in-1 + ēluctābilis, penetrable (from ēluctārī, to struggle out of : ex-, ex- + luctārī, to struggle).
Examples
“ROME—Italy's business elite Friday demanded rapid and bold action by the government to avoid what they called an "ineluctable slide into economic and social decline.”
The Wall Street Journal: Italian Business Lobby Calls for Action on Economy
“The unhavable experience, which cannot be had; the absolute ineluctable which is ineluctable: how can I talk about it?”
“We could be misled if we considered the rise of the nones simply a symptom of ineluctable secularization.”
“Anyone still doubting the ineluctable stupidity of firebaggers can read the comment @19.”
“Taken as an ineluctable entirety, these units of self-measure are intense, unnerving, and productively bewildering.”
The Huffington Post: Seth Abramson: December 2011 Contemporary Poetry Reviews
“The Chief Judge dissented, noting, "this court's unprecedented decision leads to the ineluctable result of union decertification in order to invoke rights to which players are clearly entitled under the antitrust laws.”
The Huffington Post: David Morris: The Superbowl Is Over -- Now The Real Combat Begins
“Some argue that there should be one and only one priority -- investing in research to discover a cure for Alzheimer's or at least to invent medications to stop the ineluctable decline the disease brings with it.”
“An exploration of love, need, and the ineluctable force of the past, Nocturnes reveals these individuals to us with extraordinary precision and subtlety, and with the arresting psychological and emotional detail that has marked all of Kazuo Ishiguros acclaimed works of fiction.”
Nocturnes: Summary and book reviews of Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro.
“He insists on the ineluctable historical presence of morality in our lives, which leads him to his basic insight: that those who did evil believed that they were doing good.”
“It's as if she's reading Balanchine's foreknowledge of his loss in the ineluctable flow of his choreography.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ineluctable’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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vocabulous
autarkic, ineluctable, productivist, teleology, imperious, Balkanization, phytosanitary, inedia, algesia, protean, tenebrous, libretto and 10 more...
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Test
Casey "She stood on a tripod of stiff telescoping metal. her body had been altered for heavy labour, with pistons and pulleys giving her what looked like ineluctable strength." From Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Sep 22, 2011
john Day after Christmas, 2006, 5:43pm EST: ineluctable is the 100,000th word posted on Wordie. A Joycean word:
"Ineluctable modality of the visible: At least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack , the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see." - Ulysses, "Proteus"
and later in the same chapter:
"I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back." Dec 26, 2006