Unbeaten

How to spell unbeaten

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce unbeaten

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unbeaten mean?

1. adjectiveHaving never been defeated in a contest, competition, or game.
2. adjectiveNot worn down by traffic or footsteps; remote and rarely visited.

Unbeaten in a sentence

• The team finished the season unbeaten and lifted the trophy.

• The hikers wandered off the main route in search of an unbeaten trail.

• Her unbeaten record in the courtroom impressed every new client.

• The village sat on an unbeaten road far from the motorway.

Where does unbeaten come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built entirely from native English parts, which is why it feels so plain on the page. The core verb 'beat' comes from the Old English 'beatan', meaning 'to strike repeatedly' or 'to thrash', a sense still alive when we beat a drum or beat eggs. From the idea of physically thrashing an opponent grew the figurative meaning of defeating someone in a contest. The prefix 'un-' is the old Germanic negative, meaning simply 'not', and the '-en' ending is the regular Old English past-participle marker, the same one seen in 'broken' and 'eaten'. So 'unbeaten' literally reads as 'not beaten', and because every piece is familiar the spelling holds few surprises beyond remembering the single 't' before '-en'.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• beat (to strike, to defeat)
• -en (past participle suffix)