Unnecessarily

adv

adv ·6 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adverb

1
In an unnecessary way; not by necessity.
"He unnecessarily repeated much of what others had covered."
2
To an extent beyond what is needed.
"The food provided was unnecessarily generous, especially for an event meant to raise money for the hungry."

Adverb

1
without any necessity wordnet
2
in an unnecessary manner wordnet

Synonyms

aimlessly for no reason needlessly needlessly pointlessly too

Antonyms

Example

"There is no need to be unnecessarily anxious about the outbreak."

Etymology

From unnecessary + -ly or un- + necessarily.

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