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unacceptably

adverb

Simple meaning

Not within the limits of what is generally considered to be acceptable.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

uhnaksehptuhblee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ənækˈsɛptəbli

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adverb

  1. Not within the limits of what is generally considered to be acceptable.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Not within the limits of what is generally considered to be acceptable.

Used this way, unacceptably is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use unacceptably

  • “The percentage of lead in our drinking water is unacceptably high.”adverb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

unacceptably highunacceptably lowunacceptably largeunacceptably longunacceptably slowunacceptably poorunacceptably smallunacceptably wide

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: not within the limits of what is generally considered to be acceptable

acceptably

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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.