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''inviolate'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260207202820-00-⌔

inviolate - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

inviolate (comparative more inviolate, superlative most inviolate)

  • Not violated; free from violation or hurt of any kind; secure against violation or impairment.
    • ✤ Synonym: (obsolete) unviolate
    • ✤ His fortune of arms was still inviolate.1
    • ✤ A partner can also, hopefully, be trusted more fully than any other person in our lives. Our courts recognize this by refusing to allow a person to testify against his or her spouse. The sanctity of the home, by which they mean the couple, is inviolate.2
  • Incorruptible.
    • ✤ * inviolate truth*3
    • ✤ There chaste Alceste lives inviolate.4

Etymology

From Middle English inviolat, inviolate, from Latin inviolātus.56 By surface analysis, in- (“not”) +‎ violate (adjective).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ɪnˈvaɪ.ə.lət/, /ɪnˈvaɪ.əʊˌleɪt/
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1987 February 8, Robert Storen, “On Being Cozy with Mister Right”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 29, page 12: ↩

  3. 1668, John Denham, Of Prudence (poem) ↩

  4. 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Virgils Gnat”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC: ↩

  5. “inviolāt(e, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  6. “inviolate, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000. ↩

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