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Why is irrespective considered a proper word but irregardless is not?

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    In a recent video, my favorite Merriam-Webster editor warns against calling "irregardless" a non-word.
    – Fixee
    May 23, 2012 at 6:05
  • Another similar word that you can find examples of by Googling is "unlimitless"
    – herisson
    Feb 12, 2017 at 18:00
  • Simple answer: one is a word, the other is not.
    – Lambie
    May 29, 2019 at 17:04

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The "ir" in "irrespective" means "not", i.e. "not respective". So "irregardless" would mean "not regardless", which would mean the opposite of what you probably hope it would mean.

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    I agree. But the situation with irregardless is that people mean "regardless" and so we have two words, that appear to be antonyms, which are actually synonyms. Reminds me of "inflammable" and "flammable".
    – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇
    Aug 18, 2010 at 15:57
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    @Mr. Shiny and New: Yet people don't have any trouble with "inflammatory".
    – mmyers
    Sep 15, 2010 at 20:13
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    I have to add (because it is a reminder of one of my most ignominious defeats) that 'irregardless' has fought its way into most dictionaries. Here's M-W: - The most frequently repeated remark about it (irregardless - bev) is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. . Sad but true.
    – bev
    Dec 1, 2010 at 23:37
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    I think the case of "flammable"/"inflamable" is completely different. The prefix "in-" of "inflammable" does not mean "not", but in/into". The latin prefix "in-" can have either meaning, see for example personal.kent.edu/~rlarson/words/latin/latpref.html
    – user53201
    Oct 1, 2013 at 11:31
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    Furthermore, "flammable" was essentially a neologism. Though it may have existed to some extent before, it was "invented" ca 1960 for use on trucks and rail cars in the US, to eliminate the confusion between "inflammable" and "non-flammable". Before that time the word was rarely used, if at all.
    – Hot Licks
    Oct 31, 2016 at 21:52
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Some people use "irregardless" for “regardless” but many people think it is incorrect. It is probably a combination of "irrespective" and "regardless" which is sometimes used humorously.

Oxford Dictionary says:

Irregardless means the same as regardless, but the negative prefix ir- merely duplicates the suffix -less, and is unnecessary. The word dates back to the 19th century, but is regarded as incorrect in standard English.

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  • An informal example: The photographer always says, irregardless of how his subjects are feeling, ‘Smile!’
    – Mehper C. Palavuzlar
    Aug 18, 2010 at 12:43
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    It is like "misunderestimate", where "misunderstand" and "underestimate" were conflated. Only "irregardless" has become so widespread that, at some point in the future, people might not even think twice about using it.
    – Kosmonaut
    Aug 18, 2010 at 13:18
  • The OED says “In non-standard or humorous use: regardless.”
    – tchrist ♦
    May 23, 2012 at 12:23
  • Irregardless has been antedated to 1795: motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/…
    – user28567
    Apr 26, 2016 at 23:25
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In addition to the prefix/suffix duplication, irregardless is used rarely. A COCA query shows 11189 hits for regardless and only 36 for irregardless. That's a reason for it to not be considered a proper word.

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  • I don't see how the number of appearances in COCA suggests anything about a word's properness. 'tremulant' only has two hits, while 'cromulent' has eight. The Corpus is a measure of rarity, not correctness.
    – ladenedge
    Aug 18, 2010 at 19:46
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    @ladenedge The concept of properness is ill-defined. People who write dictionaries are faced with what words to include and what meaning to ascribe to those words. This is particularly relevant when adding new words. Part of this decision has to do with how commonly and consistently they are used. In order to evaluate these factors they use a corpus. This is also how they identify idioms, collocations, and alternate meanings. Researchers even use special corpora based on text from learners to find typical mistakes such as using words like 'irregardless'.
    – Chris
    Aug 19, 2010 at 12:35
  • @Chris I feel like I hear this work all the time, but only in the last 3 or 4 years.
    – leeand00
    Apr 24 at 21:18
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According to Merriam-Webster, irregardless is a word that means the same as regardless.

Is irregardless a word?

Yes. It may not be a word that you like, or a word that you would use in a term paper, but irregardless certainly is a word. It has been in use for well over 200 years, employed by a large number of people across a wide geographic range and with a consistent meaning. That is why we, and well-nigh every other dictionary of modern English, define this word.

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A proper word must not be redundant by mere inclusion of a prefix. In this case, both words make use of the prefix "ir-", which in most cases creates an antonym of the word without that prefix, e.g. something that is "relevant" is that complete opposite of something not pertinent to the matter at hand, or "irrelevant".

First examining the proper word "irrespective", we have "respective" when removing the "ir-" prefix. "Respective" carries a meaning much like "with regard to", reserving an importance that had been or will be established. Hence, "irrespective" should mean "without regard to", which it does quite nicely when the preposition "of" follows.

Now, we remove the prefix "ir-" from the widely-recognized though improper word "irregardless" and have "regardless", a word used to indicate contrast. Very often, "regardless" can stand alone without a preposition immediately afterward. This usage of "regardless" gives such synonyms as "nonetheless", "nevertheless", and "even so". When "regardless" is followed by "of", the writer states that something is true despite whatever may be the object of that "of".

The redundancy of and lack of purpose for "irregardless" becomes strikingly obvious as we include the prefix "ir-" once more, since we might note that there is no apparent difference in meaning between "regardless" and "irregardless". While English is not likely the most logical language, we should nevertheless see a sharp contrast between these two words, with the prefix causing "irregardless of" to mean "in light of" or "with regard to", which is not a documented usage of the word. However, this is the correct usage of "irrespective of", which does not duplicate the meaning of the word to which the prefix "ir-" is added.

Consequently, "irregardless" should never be used in any formal writing or even in formal speech, as it accomplishes nothing other than to weaken the meaning of "regardless". When "of" does not naturally follow, use "regardless" or one of the synonyms discussed. When of naturally follows, either "irrespective of" (my personal preference whenever suitable) or "regardless of" can substitute marvelously!

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  • Regarding the word irregardless and regardless, regardless is to irregardless what respectiveless is to irrespectiveless, not respective and irrespective. Your example hinges on a comparison which is irrelevant, which might be possible to describe as relevantless or irrelevantless, in real, proper English.
    – Clearer
    Nov 25, 2014 at 14:46
  • "A proper word must not be redundant by mere inclusion of a prefix." - Proper. Must not. You say this as if English follows laws, but it does not.
    – nnnnnn
    Jul 5, 2020 at 7:18

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