Undisputed

How to spell undisputed

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce undisputed

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does undisputed mean?

1. adjectiveAccepted by everyone and not open to question or argument.

Undisputed in a sentence

• She is the undisputed leader of the company after years of steady results.

• The report presented the undisputed facts of the case before any opinions were offered.

Where does undisputed come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the verb dispute, which English took through Old French from the Latin disputare. That Latin verb combined dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'separately', with putare, meaning 'to reckon, to weigh, or to think over', so its literal sense was something like 'to weigh up from different sides'. From debating and reasoning a matter back and forth, dispute came to mean arguing or contesting a point, and the negative prefix un- simply reverses it: something undisputed is something nobody argues against. The same putare root quietly survives in a whole family of English words such as compute, repute, and impute, all of which involve reckoning or thinking. The adjective form, marked by the -ed ending, was in steady use by the 1600s to describe claims, titles, and facts that stood beyond challenge.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• dis- (apart)
• put (from Latin putare: to reckon, to think)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)