inordinate
adjective
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Although today it describes something that exceeds reasonable limits, inordinate used to be applied to what does not conform to the expected or desired order of things. That sense, synonymous with disorderly and unregulated, is no longer in use, but it offers a hint as to the origins of inordinate. The word traces back to the Latin verb ordinare, meaning “to arrange,” combined with the negating prefix in-. Ordinare is also the ancestor of such English words as coordination, ordain, ordination, and subordinate. The Latin root comes from the noun ordo, meaning “order” or “arrangement,” from which the English word order and its derivatives originate.
Synonyms
Examples of inordinate in a Sentence
Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times, 19 Nov. 2024
The Ravens weren’t winning because coach John Harbaugh was playing his starters an inordinate amount.
—Jeff Zrebiec, The Athletic, 26 Aug. 2024
To Meeting Excel Users' Needs To keep spreadsheet-loving users happy, data teams spend an inordinate amount of time trying to help users export data instead of being able to connect them directly to a data platform.
—Artyom Keydunov, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2024
She, who’s been running a guest house back home in Korea since your father passed, and leaves you an inordinate number of voicemails trying to match you with any handsome visiting Canadians.
—Ritesh Mehta, IndieWire, 6 Sep. 2024
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Dictionary Entries Near inordinate
Cite this Entry
“Inordinate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inordinate. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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inordinate
adjective
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