English Reference
Adjective

inadvertent

adj.
C1 Advanced US /ˌɪnædˈvɝtənt/ UK /ɪnɐdvˈɜːtənt/ in·ad·ver·tent

adj.done by accident or without meaning to. You use this to describe something that happens because you were not paying attention.

adj.done or occurring without intention or without being noticed. Often used in legal or formal contexts to describe unintentional errors or omissions.


SIMPLE

The mistake was inadvertent and easily corrected.

CONTEXTUAL

The lawyer argued that the evidence was discovered through an inadvertent error in the filing process.

COMPLEX

While the breach of protocol was inadvertent, the committee still felt it necessary to issue a formal apology to the affected guests.

This makes it possible to identify how genetic diversity develops over time and to prevent the inadvertent loss of genetic diversity.

Phys.org· 26 Aug 2026

An inadvertent error is not fraud, as the President and a third of his cabinet should know because they reportedly did the same thing.

The Guardian· 27 Aug 2026

Borrowed from Medieval Latin inadvertēns.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This entry
Origin la-med inadvertēns
Level C1 · Advanced
Frequency Occasional
Updated