Standard Lemma guide

undutiful

adj · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

adj

Meaning 1

Not dutiful.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • 1652, George Herbert, A Priest to the Temple, or, The Countrey Parson, reproduced in George Herbert Palmer (ed.), The English Works of George Herbert, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1905, Volume 2, Chapter 6. The Parson Praying, p. 27, Besides his example, he, having often instructed his people how to carry themselves in divine service, exacts of them all possible reverence, by no means enduring either talking, or sleeping, or gazing, or leaning, or halfe-kneeling, or any undutifull behaviour in them, but causing them when they sit, or stand, or kneel, to do all in a strait and steady posture, as attending to what is done in the Church, and every one, man and child, answering aloud both Amen and all other answers which are on the Clerk’s and people’s part to answer [...]

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

adjective satellite

Meaning 2

lacking due respect or dutifulness

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • impious toward one's parents
  • an undutiful son

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: impious

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From un- + dutiful.

Across languages

Translations

4 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Latin: impius — not dutiful
  • Middle English: unkynde — not dutiful
  • Norwegian Bokmål: uansvarlig — not dutiful
  • Swedish: oansvarig — not dutiful