unintended consequence
unintended consequence noun: an outcome of a purposeful action that is not intended or foreseen.
Noun
unintended consequence (plural unintended consequences)
- An outcome of a purposeful action that is not intended or foreseen.
- Over the past several years we’ve learned a lot about the unintended consequences of social media. Platforms intended to bring us closer together make us angrier and more isolated.2019 May 4, Bret Stephens, “Facebook’s Unintended Consequence”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
Forms of unintended consequence
| plural | unintended consequences |
|---|---|
| alternative form | unanticipated consequence |
| alternative form | unforeseen consequence |
Origin of unintended consequence
Popularized by sociologist Robert K. Merton.
Questions about unintended consequence
- What does unintended consequence mean?
- Unintended consequence means an outcome of a purposeful action that is not intended or foreseen.
- What part of speech is unintended consequence?
- Unintended consequence is a noun.
- What is the plural of unintended consequence?
- The plural of unintended consequence is unintended consequences.
Words near unintended consequence in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: unintended consequence (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.
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Cite this entry: “unintended consequence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unintended_consequence. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.