inevitability

Etymology

It is formed from English inevitable + -ity,^[2][3] perhaps modelled on French inévitabilité.^[3][2] The adjective, recorded from the mid-15th century, is from Latin inēvītābilis (“unavoidable”), from in- (“not”) and ēvītābilis (“avoidable”),^[3][2] the source of evitable,^[2] from ēvītō (“to avoid”), from ex (“out”) and vītō (“to shun”).^[3][2] Etymonline quotes de Vaan, who thinks a link of the last verb with invītus (“unwilling”) and vīs (“you want”) formally more probable.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The quality of being inevitable: 1649, in Bishop Jeremy Taylor's The Great Exemplar.^[2][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its first sense, which the Historical Thesaurus places among the words for necessity.^[4][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as impossibility of being avoided, or certainty, with a quotation on liberty and necessity.^[5] The OED also records it as a countable noun, an instance of something inevitable, with the plural inevitabilities.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 1649 – the quality of being inevitable.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The quality or state of being inevitable; certainty that something will happen: the inevitability of change.^[6][2][5]
2. Something that cannot be avoided: Delays became an inevitability once the storm closed the airport.^[2][6]

Related words

• inevitable
• evitable
• inevitableness

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
5. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster