involuntary
adjective
Simple meaning
Not voluntary or willing.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihnvahluhntuhreeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnˈvɑləntɛɹi
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
Not voluntary or willing; contrary or opposed to explicit will or desire; unwilling.
Without intention; unintentional.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Not voluntary or willing; contrary or opposed to explicit will or desire; unwilling.
Used this way, involuntary is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It keeps things gentle rather than emphatic.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Reluctant or hesitant
- Usage feel
- Understated and gentle
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use involuntary
- “Involuntary manslaughter.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A muscle that contracts without conscious control and found in walls of internal organs such as stomach and intestine and bladder and blood vessels (excluding the heart).
A trust created by a court (regardless of the intent of the parties) to benefit a party that has been wrongfully deprived of its rights.
A civil right guaranteed by the 13th amendment to the US Constitution.
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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.