Dictionary

ineluctable en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ɪn.ɪˈlʌk.tə.bəl/ (UK, US)
• (US) audio

Etymology

From Middle French inéluctable (whence in- + e- and -able), from Latin inēlūctābilis, from in- + ēlūctor (“struggle out”) + -bilis.

Meanings

1. Impossible to avoid or escape; inescapable, irresistible.
   • They have come under the yoke of ineluctable slavery. 1797, Alexander Shiels, A Hind Let Loose, Calton (Glasgow), page 541
   • […] The first will be the ineluctable fact of climate change. 2007 July 6, Marina Hyde, “The artists formerly known as huge carbon footprints”, in The Guardian:
   • Captain Kirk! And the ineluctible Mr. Spock. Welcome to Motherlode, gentlemen. Interested in purchasing a little love? 1973, Harry Mudd, Mudd's Passion (Star Trek: The Animated Series episode 10)
   • I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[episode 3]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC:
   • For the self-regulating market was now believed to follow from the inexorable laws of Nature, and the unshackling of the market to be an ineluctable necessity. 1957 [1944], Karl Polanyi, chapter 10, in The Great Transformation, Beacon Press: Boston, page 127:
   • God indeed (if it please him) can by his absolute power over his Creature, make him act this thing, or take that thing, by ineluctable Necessity, and whether he will or no. 1655, Thomas Pierce, A Correct Copy of Some Notes concerning Gods Decrees, "A Paraenesis to the Reader," chapter 4, item 50
   • Out in the street, under the reddening afternoon sun, a spectacle of ineluctable commerce greeted her. 1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun:
   • As we've seen, the Manifesto’s argument for the ineluctable impoverishment of the working class under capitalism, for example, has not been borne out. 2022, China Miéville, A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, Head of Zeus, →ISBN:
   • He was aware instantly of an opposition in his members, unanimous and invincible, clinging to life with a single and fixed resolve, finger by finger, sinew by sinew; something that was at once he and not he—at once within and without him;—the shutting of some miniature valve in his brain, which a single manly thought should suffice to open—and the grasp of an external fate ineluctable as gravity. 1894, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lloyd Osbourne, chapter 10, in The Ebb-Tide:

Forms

Antonyms

eluctable

Deriveds

ineluctably · ineluctability · ineluctableness

Synonyms

natural · avoidless · irresistible · ineluctable · certain · unavoidable · inexorable · inescapable · impreventable · necessary · unforestallable · fatal · inevitable · unpreventable · foregone · predictable · unescapable

Translations (21)

nl onafwendbaar (impossible to avoid or escape) · uk немину́чий (impossible to avoid or escape) · nl onontkoombaar (impossible to avoid or escape) · uk невідворо́тний (impossible to avoid or escape) · de unabwendbar (impossible to avoid or escape) · hu kikerülhetetlen (impossible to avoid or escape) · hu elkerülhetetlen (impossible to avoid or escape) · cs nevyhnutelný (impossible to avoid or escape) · es ineludible (impossible to avoid or escape) · sv ofrånkomlig (impossible to avoid or escape) · de unvermeidbar (impossible to avoid or escape) · de unvermeidlich (impossible to avoid or escape) · bg неизбежен (impossible to avoid or escape) · de unhintergehbar (impossible to avoid or escape) · de unausweichlich (impossible to avoid or escape) · ru неизбе́жный (impossible to avoid or escape) · sv oundviklig (impossible to avoid or escape) · it ineluttabile (impossible to avoid or escape) · de unabweisbar (impossible to avoid or escape) · fr inéluctable (impossible to avoid or escape) · pt inevitável (impossible to avoid or escape)