involuntary

UK/ɪnˈvɒl.ən.tɹi/US/ɪnˈvɑ.lənˌtɛɹ.i/

adjectiveB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,242 of 15,258neutral

Involuntary means happening without your choosing it. Your body or your face did it before you decided.

Medicine uses it precisely, since involuntary muscles like the heart work without instruction, and an involuntary movement is a symptom rather than an action. Everyday use covers gasps, flinches and shivers. Law has involuntary manslaughter, meaning a killing without intent, and that use is technical and serious. Its opposite, voluntary, means both freely chosen and unpaid, so the pair do not mirror each other exactly.

Definitions of involuntary

1adjectiveinvoluntaryDone without conscious choice or control.B2+
“She gave an involuntary shiver.”

Where it comes from

Latin
involontarius
English, today
involuntary

From in- + voluntary. From in + voluntary, from Latin involontarius, from in + volontarius.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 25 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

involuntary in the wild

In biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus.
Reflex
Prison labour is often referred to as involuntary servitude.
Involuntary servitude
Earworms are considered to be a common type of involuntary cognition.
Earworm
Some of the phrases often used to describe earworms include "musical imagery repetition" and "involuntary musical imagery".
Earworm
Globally and even within countries, what is meant by the term "involuntary treatment" is not agreed upon.
Involuntary treatment

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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