Regardless

How to spell regardless

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce regardless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does regardless mean?

1. adverbWithout paying attention to the present situation; despite the circumstances.

Regardless in a sentence

• The project went ahead regardless of the budget cuts.

• She kept calm regardless of the chaos around her desk.

Where does regardless come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is built on 'regard', which English took from the Old French verb 'regarder', meaning 'to look at' or 'to pay heed to'. That verb combined the prefix 're-', used here as an intensifier, with 'garder', meaning 'to guard' or 'to watch over', a word of Germanic origin that is also the source of English 'guard' and 'ward'. From the sense of 'looking at' came the figurative meaning of 'paying attention to' or 'having consideration for', which is the meaning carried inside the modern word. The native English suffix '-less', meaning 'without', was added in the sixteenth century to form an adverb signalling that something happens 'without regard' for circumstances. A common modern error is the nonstandard 'irregardless', which awkwardly piles a negative prefix onto a word that already ends in '-less'; remembering that 'regardless' already means 'without regard' is the surest way to keep the spelling and the usage correct.

How the word is built

• re- (intensive, back)
• gard (to guard, to heed, from Old French garder)
• -less (without)