Inexorable
adj ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Impossible to prevent or stop; inevitable.
"[…] but inexorable yron detaines him in the dungeon of the night, fo that (pure creature) hee can neither traffique with the mercers and tailers as he was wont, nor dominere in tavernes as hee ought."
- 2 Unable to be persuaded; relentless; unrelenting.
"Armed with the authority of theſe decrees, James [VI and I] reſolved to cruſh entirely the mutinous ſpirit of his ſubjects. […] The King continued inexorable, the city was declared to have forfeited its privileges as a Corporation, and to be liable to all the penalties of treaſon."
- 3 Adamant; severe.
"But to ſhew how God of a moſt loving Father becomes a ſevere and inexorable judge, without any change, this alone is to the purpoſe. For the very māner of propoſing it doth imply the ceaſing to be a loving Father which he was, but becomes a ſevere & inexorable judge, which he was not."
- 1 impervious to pleas, persuasion, requests, reason wordnet
- 2 not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The inexorable force of the waves crashing against the shore over millennia caused a huge section of the headland to fall into the sea."
Etymology
From Middle French inexorable, from Latin inexōrābilis (“relentless, inexorable”) (or directly from the Latin word), from in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + exōrābilis (“that may be moved or persuaded by entreaty; exorable”). Exōrābilis is derived from exōrāre (from exōrō (“to persuade, win over; to beg, entreat, plead”), from ex- (prefix meaning ‘out of’) + ōrō (“to beg, entreat, plead, pray; to deliver a speech, orate”), from ōs (“mouth”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃éh₁os (“mouth”)) + -bilis (suffix forming adjectives indicating a capacity or worth of being acted upon). By surface analysis, in- + exorable.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.