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''irrevocable'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260606185347-00-⌔

irrevocable - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

irrevocable (not comparable)

  • Unable to be retracted or reversed; final.
    • ✤ Synonyms: irreversible, irrepealable
    • ✤ Antonyms: nonirrevocable, repealable, reversible, revocable
    • ✤ Firm and irrevocable is my doom
      Which I have pass’d upon her; she is banish’d.      1
    • ✤ I have talked thus to you, child, not to insult you for what is past and irrevocable, but to caution and strengthen you for the future.2
    • ✤ On each face, wonder and fear were painted vividly; each so still and silent, looking at the other over the black gulf of the irrevocable past.3
    • ✤ Once again, Mario Cipollini has announced his definite, absolute, unswerving and irrevocable decision to retire, and this time he means it. Probably.4

Etymology

From Middle French irrévocable, from Latin irrevocabilis; equivalent to ir- +‎ revoke +‎ -able.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ɪˈɹɛvəkəbəl/, /ˌɪɹəˈvəʊkəbəl/, /ˌɪɹəˈvɒkəbəl/
  • (US) IPA: /iˈɹɛvəkəbəl/, /ˌɪɹəˈvoʊkəbəl/, /ˌɪɹiˈvoʊkəbəl/, /ˌɪɹəˈvɑkəbəl/
  • (sometimes proscribed) Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Pronunciation notes

  • Pronunciations with antepenultimate stress are common, but sometimes proscribed.

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]: ↩

  2. RQ:Fielding Tom Jones,: ↩

  3. 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, chapter 61, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC: ↩

  4. 2005 April 28, Samuel Abt, “Cycling: Cipo retires. Definitely. Absolutely. Yes. Probably”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 April 2014: ↩

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