unauthorized
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
not having official permission to happen or to be in a place.
done or occurring without official authorization, sanction, or legal permission.
Simple“The security guard stopped the man for making an unauthorized entry into the building.”
In context“The IT department detected several unauthorized attempts to access the company's private database from an external server.”
UsageUsually placed before the noun it modifies.
Teacher's tipThis is a common term in legal, security, and digital contexts; it sounds much more formal than 'not allowed'.
SynonymsAntonyms
“His unauthorised trip was discovered when he made a series of social media posts from Brazil.”
“Unauthorised transfers started flowing from his crypto wallet and soon he had lost more than $166,000.”
From un- + authorized.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.