Inimical

//ɪˈnɪmɪkəl// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Harmful in effect.

    "She doesn’t want to touch it, and indeed every particle of her screams against doing so because it is somehow inimical to her."

  2. 2
    Unfriendly, hostile.

    "Her inimical attitude precludes romance."

Adjective
  1. 1
    not friendly wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
hostileunfriendlyadversaryadversativeadverseadversive

Example

More examples

"He doesn't understand that his actions are inimical to his own interests."

Etymology

From Late Latin inimīcālis (“hostile”), from inimīcus (“enemy”) (from in- (“not”) + amīcus (“friend”)) + -ālis.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.