as in oral
made or carried on through speaking rather than in writing
an unwritten contract may not be enforceable
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Recent Examples of unwritten
Only then will the Leningrad courtyard, with its unwritten rules, cease to be big enough for the both of them.
—
Andrew Ryvkin, The Atlantic, 6 Dec. 2025
The mandate by India also upsets the unwritten détente between the makers of smartphone operating systems and law enforcement agencies around the world.
—Rachyl Jones, semafor.com, 3 Dec. 2025
Unimaginable what might have gone unwritten absent a regular home for her poems, a destination—a word that meant the world to this homeless soul.
—Jorie Graham, New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2025
During the first months of Moscow’s full scale invasion, there was an unwritten understanding among Ukraine’s journalists and civil society that corruption investigations were not a priority.
—Andrew Carey, CNN Money, 13 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for unwritten
Andrew Ryvkin, The Atlantic, 6 Dec. 2025
The mandate by India also upsets the unwritten détente between the makers of smartphone operating systems and law enforcement agencies around the world.
—Rachyl Jones, semafor.com, 3 Dec. 2025
Unimaginable what might have gone unwritten absent a regular home for her poems, a destination—a word that meant the world to this homeless soul.
—Jorie Graham, New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2025
During the first months of Moscow’s full scale invasion, there was an unwritten understanding among Ukraine’s journalists and civil society that corruption investigations were not a priority.
—Andrew Carey, CNN Money, 13 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for unwritten
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unwritten
Adjective
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Their oral immunization, called RotaTeq and delivered as a series of sugar-sweet drops to infants, would ultimately be licensed in 2006.—
Katherine J. Wu,
The Atlantic,
6 Jan. 2026
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The drug also worked better than a placebo and outperformed Amgen’s oral drug Otezla.—
Ed Silverman,
STAT,
6 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Texas law does allow a defense if the interference was speech only, meaning verbal criticism without physical action.—
Tiffani Jackson,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
13 Jan. 2026
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Then, the husband and a second neighbor had a verbal altercation, leading to the husband being charged with threatening to commit a crime, and with assault with intent to intimidate based on the victim’s race, religion, color and/or disability.—
Rick Sobey,
Boston Herald,
12 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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The information also helped law enforcement unravel a case that has devastated the 13-year-old’s family and friends and the community where the soft-spoken teen, known as gentle and kind, lived.—
Laura Bauer,
Kansas City Star,
3 Jan. 2026
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The project veered toward her most experimental impulses, stretching to nearly 90 minutes of drones and eerie spoken word.—
Miguel Otárola,
Denver Post,
29 Dec. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Unwritten.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unwritten. Accessed 15 Jan. 2026.
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