inevitability

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˌnɛvɪtəˈbɪlɪti/

Noun

inevitability (countable and uncountable, plural inevitabilities)

1. (uncountable) The condition of being inevitable.
   • 1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 358:

     Now, cramped and outclassed as Euston has become, rebuilding hangs over it with an awful inevitability.

   • 2019 January 20, John Naughton, quoting Shoshana Zuboff, “‘The goal is to automate us’: welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Surveillance capitalism is a human creation. It lives in history, not in technological inevitability.

   • 2020 October 14, Phil McNulty, “England 0-1 Denmark: 'Harry Maguire looked devoid of confidence in Nations League loss'”, in BBC Sport‎^[2]:

     Manchester United's 27-year-old captain cut a distracted and chaotic figure as he endured a personal nightmare, its conclusion with a red card carrying an air of inevitability from the moment he recklessly launched himself at Yussuf Poulsen to pick up an early yellow.

2. (countable) An inevitable condition or outcome.

Synonyms

• (condition of being inevitable): certainty, inescapableness, necessity
• (something inevitable): See Thesaurus:sure thing

Antonyms

• evitability
• impossibility
• contingency

Derived terms

• point of inevitability

Translations

the condition of being inevitable

• Azerbaijani: qaçılmazlıq
• Finnish: väistämättömyys (fi)
• German: Unvermeidlichkeit, Zwangsläufigkeit f, Unausweichlichkeit (de) f
• Greek: αναπόφευκτο (el) n (anapófefkto)
• Hungarian: elkerülhetetlenség (hu)
• Japanese: 不可避 (ja) (fukahi), 必然 (ja) (hitsuzen), 必然性 (hitsuzensei)
• Romanian: inevitabilitate (ro)
• Russian: неизбе́жность (ru) f (neizbéžnostʹ), неотврати́мость (ru) f (neotvratímostʹ)
• Spanish: inevitabilidad
• Swedish: oundviklighet (sv) c, ofrånkomlighet (sv) c
• Ukrainian: немину́чість f (nemynúčistʹ), невідворо́тність f (nevidvorótnistʹ)

an inevitable condition or outcome

• Finnish: väistämättömyys (fi)
• German: Zwangsläufigkeit f, Unausweichlichkeit (de) f
• Greek: αναπόφευκτο (el) n (anapófefkto)
• Romanian: inevitabilitate (ro) f
• Swedish: oundviklighet (sv) c, ofrånkomlighet (sv) c