Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 18, 2022 is: ineluctable \in-ih-LUK-tuh-bul\ adjective

Ineluctable is a formal word meaning “unable to be avoided, changed, or resisted.” Often followed by such words as fate and conclusion, it is a synonym of [inevitable](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inevitable).

// Even the tallest mountains will one day be reduced to sand by the Earth’s slow yet ineluctable geologic forces.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ineluctable)

Examples:

“In the earliest years of Hollywood, a century ago, a star-driven system gave way to a director-driven one, which studio executives then quickly clamped down on. What emerged was a top-down system that, ever since, has seemed, absurdly, like a natural and ineluctable state of the art.” — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 2 Dec. 2021

Did you know?

If you love grappling with language as much as we do, you’re sure to get a (flying) kick out of today’s word. Ineluctable, you see, has its roots in wrestling, a popular sport in ancient Greece and Rome. The Latin word lucator means “wrestler,” and luctari means “to wrestle,” as well as “to struggle, strive, or contend.” With the addition of e- ([ex-](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ex-#entry-6)) luctari became eluctari, meaning “to struggle clear of.” The negating prefix in- then piled on to form ineluctabilis, an adjective describing something that cannot be escaped or avoided. It is ineluctabilis that English speakers borrowed to form ineluctable, a word often used to describe fates that one cannot squirm free from, whether due to something as cosmic as the [Fates](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fate) themselves or as [corporeal](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/corporeal) as a headlock.