shunless

Syllables: shun·less/ˈʃʌnləs//ˈʃʌnləs/

shunless adjective: that cannot be shunned; not to be avoided; inevitable, unavoidable.

Adjective

shunless (comparative more shunless, superlative most shunless)

(literary) That cannot be shunned; not to be avoided; inevitable, unavoidable.
- Th' immortal Parcæ, fatal sisters three, / Of mortal men, do sing the shunless fate: / What once Was, what Is now, and what Shall Be, / Their life, their death, their fortune, and their state.1597, R[obert] T[ofte], “Laura. The Toys of a Traveller: Or The Feast of Fancy. […]”, in Edward Arber, compiler, An English Garner: Ingatherings from Our History and Literature, volume VIII, London...
- [A]lone he entred / The mortall Gate of th'Citie, which he painted / With ſhunleſſe deſtinie: […]c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Synonyms:

unignorable, unshunnable

Antonyms:

avoidable, ignorable, shunnable

Examples of shunless in a sentence

[T]he many still would cling / To toil and tears—to life and suffering; / And some, whose anguish might not brook to wait / That shunless doom, plunged headlong to their fate: […]1853, J. Read, “[Appendix I.] Sketches Taken from Dover Castle during a Storm.”, in William Jerdan, The Autobiography of William Jerdan...
They oft / The sway of his red club, the shunless aim / Of his dreadful bow, and wasting tomahawk, / Had felt; […]1857, [William Hayne Simmons], Alasco, an Indian Tale: […], Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co. […], →OCLC, canto the...
As for mine own dear life, O king, and thy most kingly head, / I tremble; since this cloud of war stout Hector rolleth o'er us / Dread-darkling; and perdition yawns with shunless gape before us.1866, Homer, “Book XVII”, in John Stuart Blackie, transl., Homer and the Iliad, volumes III (The Iliad in English Verse, Books...
O, greatest of shame! / O, shunless disgrace! / God's distress!1885, Richard Wagner, translated by [anonymous], Die Walküre. (The Valkyr.) First Opera of the Rhinegold Trilogy (The “Ring of the...

Synonyms of shunless

Antonyms

Forms of shunless

comparative	more shunless
superlative	most shunless

Origin of shunless

From shun + -less (suffix meaning ‘lacking, without’), probably popularized by the English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616) by its use in his play Coriolanus (c. 1608–1609): see the quotation.

Questions about shunless

What does shunless mean?: Shunless means that cannot be shunned; not to be avoided; inevitable, unavoidable.
How do you use shunless in a sentence?: [T]he many still would cling / To toil and tears—to life and suffering; / And some, whose anguish might not brook to wait / That shunless doom, plunged headlong to their fate: […]
What part of speech is shunless?: Shunless is an adjective.
How do you pronounce shunless?: Shunless is pronounced /ˈʃʌnləs/ (UK).

Words near shunless in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: shunless (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shunless.wav, En-us-shunless.oga.

Cite this entry: “shunless.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shunless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.