inevitable
adjective
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Inevitable can occasionally be found used as a noun (“the inevitable had come to pass”), but more frequently it is encountered as an adjective. Some, in fact, would classify this word not only as an adjective, but as a special kind: the absolute adjective. Absolute adjectives permit little or no variation, and cannot (in the view of some) be used in the comparative or superlative form. For instance, a person may be dead or not, but cannot be the deadest among other dead people. This neat classification seems logical enough, yet it does not apply in all situations. After all, we often speak of things as dead in a non-biological sense; can a ball that is dead (not fully inflated) be deader than another ball? Of course it can. Similar attempts to impose the "absolute" label have been made in the case of inevitable. Some consider it improper to modify the word, arguing that “almost inevitable” is illogical. Yet these two words have been successfully paired together since at least 1576, when Abraham Flemming, in a translation of Cicero, wrote, “in what snares (almost inevitable) of unluckinesse we be intangled.”
Examples of inevitable in a Sentence
Michael Chabon, New York Times Magazine, 6 May 2007
In a society that has gold-plated everything from hubcaps to teeth, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would find a way to add some bling to bacteria.
—Zach Zorich, Discover, February 2006
The Vikings disappeared, but the Inuit survived, proving that human survival in Greenland was not impossible and the Vikings' disappearance not inevitable.
—Jared M. Diamond, Collapse, 2005
getting wet is inevitable if you are going to try to give your dog a bath
Stan Choe, Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan. 2026
Dim antique lighting, picture frames covering every inch of the walls, and a centralized bar filled with buzzy characters sit at the heart of a room anchored by a few coveted tables, where leaning in and brushing shoulders with a lucky counterpart is inevitable.
—Jessica Chapel, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Jan. 2026
For governments, company leaders, investors, and others, the danger of the present lies not in uncertainty itself, but in the demand for overly simple solutions and the paralysis induced by their inevitable failure.
—Scott Montgomery, Forbes.com, 30 Jan. 2026
The modular roof bars rotate 90 degrees to become proper crossbars when needed, while the alloy wheels are subtly recessed to sit within the line of the tyre, helping avoid scrapes from inevitable encounters with kerbs or rocks.
—Fergus Scholes, TheWeek, 30 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for inevitable
Cite this Entry
“Inevitable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inevitable. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
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inevitable
adjective
