ill-advised

adjective

ˌil-əd-ˈvīzd How to pronounce ill-advised (audio)
Definition of ill-advisednext
as in inappropriate
showing poor judgment especially in personal relationships or social situations an ill-advised criticism of the boss at a company function

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ill-advised At age 33, there is reason to wonder if the season was simply a foreshadowing of Betts’ eventual decline, just as there was reason to wonder if his transition to shortstop was ill-advised. — Fabian Ardaya, New York Times, 17 Mar. 2026 Ament’s lawyers are now pushing to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he’d been ill-advised by his previous counsel. — Victoria Le, Oc Register, 28 Feb. 2026 Plenty of unconventional solutions have sprung up as a result, from the ill-advised and frightening (please don’t scoop out your period) to the innocuous and accessible—like seed cycling, or, more recently, the period steak theory. — Audrey Bruno, SELF, 19 Feb. 2026 But others criticized Jackson, calling his action ill-timed and ill-advised. — Los Angeles Times, 18 Feb. 2026 See All Example Sentences for ill-advised
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ill-advised
  1. inappropriate
  2. improper
  3. imprudent
  4. inadvisable
  5. injudicious
  6. unwise
  7. stupid
  8. careless
Adjective
  • There has been some opposition, including from the Mauthausen Committee, Austria’s main Holocaust survivors’ group, which has argued both that a police station is inappropriate and that more should be done to draw attention to Hitler’s crimes.
    — CNN Money, CNN Money, 22 July 2026
  • State auditors found in 2018 that $700K in voucher money being spent on cosmetics, clothing, and other inappropriate items.
    — Peter Greene, Forbes.com, 22 July 2026
Definition of inappropriate
Adjective
  • An improper diagnosis can trail a child through their school years, Fombonne said, but a different, underlying condition the person might have—such as depression and anxiety—might go untreated.
    — Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, 20 July 2026
  • An independent committee investigating the cause of Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades heard arguments on how improper practices that evaded regulatory oversight turned a small fire into a tragedy as the case neared its conclusion Friday.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 17 July 2026
Definition of improper
Adjective
  • The itinerants were all a bit peculiar, capable of making imprudent choices.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 22 July 2026
  • And this is Minsky’s point, that speculative excesses during euphoric, transformative periods result in imprudent financing, fragility, and instability.
    — Hersh Shefrin, Forbes.com, 4 June 2026
Definition of imprudent
Adjective
  • Eating an entire bag in one sitting is inadvisable for nearly everyone.
    — Ryan Brennan June 5, Kansas City Star, 5 June 2026
  • The frame was actually lifted, so that the piping from the turbo to the engine could be technically feasible, even if inadvisable in real life.
    — Adam Ismail, The Drive, 19 Mar. 2026
Definition of inadvisable
Adjective
  • And again, many of the reforms backfired or proved injudicious, but some of them remain powerful to this day.
    — David Frum, The Atlantic, 1 July 2026
  • These injudicious, blunt-force tariffs do get undone almost as quickly as they are slapped on, thank heavens.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 25 Jan. 2026
Definition of injudicious
Adjective
  • Needless to say, that would have been unwise for a city with a credit rating perched precariously just above junk status.
    — The Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune, 19 July 2026
  • Somebody sat in the room where Paynter's oncology program died and agreed that unbillable was the same as unwise — and that person was not a spreadsheet.
    — Sachin H. Jain, Forbes.com, 18 July 2026
Definition of unwise
Adjective
  • Parametric modeling, especially when weighted down with decades of AutoCAD’s stupid UI/UX choices, was even harder than programming.
    — Lee Hutchinson, ArsTechnica, 23 July 2026
  • The simplest explanation is that Vance believes his voters are stupid.
    — David A. Graham, The Atlantic, 21 July 2026
Definition of stupid
Adjective
  • Jaynes pleaded not guilty Monday to a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident causing property damage of more than $10,000 and a traffic violation of careless and prohibited driving.
    — Grant Lancaster, Arkansas Online, 29 July 2026
  • Myers, however, threw a careless hit that concussed Matty Beniers during his rookie campaign, and Kraken fans have long remembered that sequence.
    — Sean McIndoe, New York Times, 25 July 2026
Definition of careless

Browse Nearby Words

ill
ill-advised
ill at ease
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Cite this Entry

“Ill-advised.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ill-advised. Accessed 1 Aug. 2026.

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Nglish: Translation of ill-advised for Spanish Speakers

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