Regardless or irregardless: which is correct?
Standard form: regardless — Non-standard: irregardless. Regardless = without paying attention to the present situation, despite everything; regardless of = without regard to.
- Part of speech
- adverb
- Source
- Merriam-Webster
Why
Merriam-Webster enters irregardless as nonstandard — a blend of irrespective and regardless whose ir- prefix adds a second negative that means nothing; Oxford gives it the same status. Use regardless in all edited writing.
Examples
- We will go ahead regardless of the weather.
- Regardless of the cost, safety comes first.
Wrong → right
Native spelling engine
- Checked against
- Merriam-Webster / Oxford
- Spelling authority
- Merriam-Webster · Oxford English Dictionary / Oxford spelling · SCOWL
- Commonly confused and non-standard forms
- 64
- Dictionary
- Hunspell en_US / en_GB / en_AU / en_CA · Dictionary license: MIT AND BSD (SCOWL combined licence)
Commonly confused words
Commonly confused words are pairs or groups that sound or look alike but differ in meaning or grammar, such as affect and effect, its and it’s, or principal and principle. Each entry here explains the difference in plain words, shows it in two example sentences and names the convention it follows: Merriam-Webster for American English, Oxford for British English. Spelling variants such as colour and color are marked as correct in their own variety, not as errors.