inviolate
Americanadjective
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free from violation, injury, desecration, or outrage.
-
undisturbed; untouched.
-
not infringed.
adjective
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free from violation, injury, disturbance, etc
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a less common word for inviolable
Other Word Forms
- inviolacy noun
- inviolately adverb
- inviolateness noun
Etymology
Origin of inviolate
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin inviolātus unhurt, inviolable. See in- 3, violate
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
If people can’t trust Social Security to keep their privacy inviolate, confidence in the entire program may well be shattered.
From Los Angeles Times
Because this crosses a line you maintain is inviolate, you might consider taking a trial separation while your husband works on his issues.
From Washington Post
A last bastion of privacy, our brains have remained inviolate, even as sensors now record our heartbeats, breaths, steps and sleep.
From Scientific American
I was able to restore truer ways of feeling to certain memories that a younger, more fearful self had falsified and that the passage of time had made inviolate.
From New York Times
It was an illegal homestead carved by settlers out of a 550-square-mile Indigenous reserve that is meant to be inviolate.
From New York Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
