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Mandatory vs Unavoidable - What's the difference?

mandatory | unavoidable | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between mandatory and unavoidable

is that mandatory is obligatory; required or commanded by authority while unavoidable is impossible to avoid; bound to happen.

As nouns the difference between mandatory and unavoidable

is that mandatory is a person, organisation or state who receives a mandate; a mandatary while unavoidable is something that cannot be avoided.

mandatory

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Obligatory; required or commanded by authority.
    • Attendance at a school is usually mandatory .
  • * 1999 , Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen, Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind , page 276
    • This kind of immediate control structure we take to be characteristic of the tribe, and it leads to a rather rigid type of system in which 'every action not mandatory is forbidden'.
  • Of, being or relating to a mandate.
    • Mandatory Palestine

    Synonyms

    * compulsory * obligatory

    Antonyms

    * (obligatory) optional * (obligatory) elective

    Derived terms

    * mandatoriness

    Noun

    (mandatories)
  • (dated, rare) A person, organisation or state who receives a mandate; a mandatary.

    • External links

    * * * Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary * The Oxford English Dictionary

    Anagrams

    *

    unavoidable

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Impossible to avoid; bound to happen.
  • (legal) Not voidable; incapable of being made null or void.
    • (Blackstone)

    Usage notes

    * See usage notes at inevitable.

    Synonyms

    * (impossible to avoid) inescapable, inevitable

    Antonyms

    * (impossible to avoid) avoidable

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something that cannot be avoided.
  • * 1825 , The London magazine (volume 12, page 490)
    • Forty years before, I had thought this odour one of the necessities of life — one of the unavoidables at least