inadvertent
adjective
Did you know?
The Formation of Inadvertent
It may look innocent, but inadvertent belongs to a class of words that provoke anger in many people who care about language – to wit, the back-formation. Bucking the usual trend in which longer words are formed from shorter ones by the addition of an affix (for example, superficiality from superficial), back-formations are created by clipping off a piece of a longer word; in this case, inadvertent was back-formed from inadvertence or inadvertency. A fair number of these words populate English, including brainwash (from brainwashing), complicit (from complicity), escalate (from escalator), and televise (from television). Certain back-formations, such as liaise (which comes from liaison) rub some people the wrong way. While they are under no obligation to accept liaise, there is nothing inherently wrong with back-formations; they are just another way our language has of creating new words.
Examples of inadvertent in a Sentence
Wesley Alexander Hill, Forbes.com, 7 May 2025
Eklund is now recovering from the inadvertent cut during a tune-up game between Sweden and the Czech Republic on Saturday in advance of the IIHF World Championships, which begin later this week with Eklund’s hometown of Stockholm being a co-host.
—Curtis Pashelka, Mercury News, 5 May 2025
What to look for: The brick and stone walls are nearly three feet thick in places and are designed to withstand any inadvertent ammunition explosions.
—Arkansas Online, 2 May 2025
The scenario has played out in American communities for years -- sometimes resulting from bad intelligence, others from inadvertent officer errors -- often leaving property damaged and families traumatized.
—Devin Dwyer, ABC News, 29 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for inadvertent
Cite this Entry
“Inadvertent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inadvertent. Accessed 21 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
inadvertent
adjective
Share