Unregulated

How to spell unregulated

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce unregulated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unregulated mean?

1. adjectiveNot controlled or supervised by rules, laws, or an official authority.

Unregulated in a sentence

• The report warned that the unregulated lending market was putting borrowers at risk.

• Many unregulated supplements are sold online without any safety testing.

Where does unregulated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the Latin regula, which literally meant a straight rod or a measuring stick that carpenters and builders used to keep lines true, and which came to mean a rule or pattern to follow. From regula Latin formed regulare, 'to control by rule', and that verb passed into late Latin and then into English in the 1600s as 'regulate', meaning to govern or adjust by an established standard. The adjective 'unregulated' simply adds the native English prefix un-, meaning 'not', to the past participle, and so describes anything left without rules or oversight. The same regula root sits openly inside familiar relatives such as 'rule', 'regular', and 'ruler', and noticing that shared 'regul' core helps fix the spelling, since the word is really un + regulate + ed rather than anything more exotic. The doubling worry that trips people on similar words does not apply here, because regulate ends in a silent 'e' that is dropped before -ed.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• regul- (from Latin regula: a rule, straight rod)
• -ate (verb-forming)
• -ed (past participle/adjective)