immutable

English

Etymology

From Middle English immutable, from Latin immūtābilis (“unchangeable”); im- +‎ mutable.

Pronunciation

• Audio (Mid-Atlantic US):

  (file)

Adjective

immutable (not comparable)

1. Unable to be changed without exception.

   Synonyms: unchangeable; see also Thesaurus:immutable

   The government has enacted an immutable law.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 171:

     Mutable as is our nature, it delights in the immutable: and we expect as much constancy as if all time, to say nothing of our own changeableness, had not shewn that ever "the fashion of this world passeth away."

   • 2019, Peter Kent, Tyler Bain, Cryptocurrency Mining For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 30:

     In the trustless cryptocurrency world, you can still trust the cryptocurrency community and its mechanisms to ensure that the blockchain contains an accurate and immutable—unchangeable—record of cryptocurrency transactions.

2. (programming, of a variable) Not able to be altered in the memory after its value is set initially.

   Constants are immutable.

Antonyms

• mutable
• nonimmutable

Derived terms

• immutableness
• immutably
• strongly immutable
• weakly immutable

Translations

unable to be changed without exception

• Bulgarian: неизменен (bg) (neizmenen), неотменим (bg) (neotmenim)
• Catalan: immutable (ca)
• Czech: nezměnitelný m
• Dutch: onveranderlijk (nl)
• Finnish: muuttumaton (fi)
• French: immuable (fr), immutable (fr)
• Galician: inmutábel (gl), inmutable (gl)
• Georgian: უცვლელი (ucvleli), დაურღვეველი (daurɣveveli), გარდაუვალი (gardauvali)
• German: unveränderbar (de), unveränderlich (de)
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: ἀμετάθετος (ametáthetos)

• Italian: immutabile (it)
• Japanese: 不変の (ja) (ふへんの, fuhen no)
• Middle English: immutable
• Persian: دگرشناپذیر
• Plautdietsch: onve'endalich
• Polish: niezmienny (pl)
• Portuguese: imutável (pt)
• Romanian: imuabil (ro), neschimbător (ro)
• Russian: неизме́нный (ru) (neizménnyj), непрело́жный (ru) (neprelóžnyj), постоя́нный (ru) (postojánnyj)
• Spanish: inmutable (es)
• Swedish: oföränderlig (sv)
• Turkish: değişmez (tr), sabit (tr)

Noun

immutable (plural immutables)

1. Something that cannot be changed.

Anagrams

• multibeam

French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin immūtābilis. Compare immuable.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /i.my.tabl/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Adjective

immutable (plural immutables)

1. (rare) immutable

   Synonym: immuable

2. (programming) immutable

Further reading

• “immutable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Middle English

Alternative forms

• inmutable, inmutabull, inmutabulle, ymmutable

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin immutabilis; equivalent to in- +‎ mutable.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /i(n)ˌmiu̯ˈtaːbəl/, /i(n)ˌmiu̯ˈtaːblə/

Adjective

immutable (Late Middle English)

1. immutable, unchangeable

Descendants

• English: immutable

References

• “immūtāble, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.