INVOLUNTARILY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does involuntarily mean? 

• INVOLUNTARILY (adverb)
  The adverb INVOLUNTARILY has 1 sense:

1. against your will

  Familiarity information: INVOLUNTARILY used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INVOLUNTARILY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Against your will

Context example:

he was involuntarily held against his will

Antonym:

voluntarily (out of your own free will)

Pertainym:

involuntary (not subject to the control of the will)

 Context examples 

"And Rosamond Oliver?" suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“Look at that!” I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“Yes, that is final,” I involuntarily echoed.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I saw Uriah's lank hand stop, involuntarily, in the scraping of his chin.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He never took his eyes from the god, thrusting his head forward with ears flattened back and hair involuntarily rising and cresting on his neck.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he involuntarily put it in the water.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

From Frank Churchill's face, where he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had involuntarily turned to hers; but she was indeed behind, and too busy with her shawl.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Elinor turned involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by her.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)