immoral
adjective
Simple meaning
Breaching principles of natural law, rectitude, or justice, and so inconsistent with the demands of virtue, purity, or "good morals".
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihmawruhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪˈmɔɹəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Breaching principles of natural law, rectitude, or justice, and so inconsistent with the demands of virtue, purity, or "good morals"; not right, not moral.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Breaching principles of natural law, rectitude, or justice, and so inconsistent with the demands of virtue, purity, or "good morals"; not right, not moral.
Used this way, immoral is a specialist word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Positive and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
- Ethics/values
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.