unintentionally
adverb
Simple meaning
Without meaning to; by accident.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhnihntehnshuhnuhleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ənɪnˈtɛnʃənəli
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.
adverb
Without intention; in an unintentional manner
Without meaning to, in an unintentional manner, not intentionally.
Understand the Word
How this word is built, and what each part adds.
Unintentionally describes something done by accident rather than on purpose.
- un-
- not, or without
- intention
- what someone means to do
- -al
- relating to
- -ly
- turns the adjective into an adverb: in that manner
Prefix function , Not — expresses absence of the quality
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Without intention; in an unintentional manner
Used this way, unintentionally 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 unintentionally
- “She hit him unintentionally.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Done or made or performed with purpose and intent.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- intentionallyadverb
- inadvertentlyadverb
- accidentallyadverb
- killverb
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: without intention
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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.