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''inopportune'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''inopportune'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250817012731-00-⌔

inopportune - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

inopportune (comparative more inopportune, superlative most inopportune)

  • Unsuitable for some particular purpose.
    • ✤ That was a most inopportune spot for a picnic.
    • ✤ “It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,” said he, “when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to install myself here till he returns.”1
  • Happening/occurring at an inconvenient or inappropriate time.
    • ✤ The inopportune arrival of the bus cut short the interesting conversation.
    • ✤ The object is to keep the yard operators apprised of main-line movements, so that they do not plan to occupy the main lines with activity into or out of the yard at an inopportune juncture.2

Etymology

From Latin inopportūnus.3 By surface analysis, in- +‎ opportune.

Pronunciation

  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter III, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 77: ↩

  2. 1962 October, G[eoffrey] Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland’s Northern Division—II”, in Modern Railways, page 170: ↩

  3. “inopportune, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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