Unnatural

How to spell unnatural

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce unnatural

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unnatural mean?

1. adjectiveContrary to the ordinary or expected course of nature; strange, forced, or artificial.

Unnatural in a sentence

• The actor's smile looked stiff and unnatural on camera.

• An unnatural silence fell over the office after the announcement.

Where does unnatural come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The core of this word is the Latin natura, meaning 'birth, character, the inborn quality of a thing', which itself grew from the verb nasci, 'to be born'. English took 'natural' through Old French naturel in the 1300s to describe whatever follows the ordinary course of nature. The negative was formed on English soil by adding the native Germanic prefix un-, meaning simply 'not', to give 'not in accordance with nature'. Because that prefix ends in n and the base word 'natural' begins with n, the two letters collide and produce the double n that writers so often reduce to a single one. The same natura root survives in everyday relatives such as 'nation', 'native', and 'innate', all of which trace back to the idea of being born.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• natur (from Latin natura: birth, character)
• -al (adjective suffix)