Adjective

1. Regardless.
   • 1875, Knights Templar (Masonic order) Reed Commandery, No. 6 (Dayton, Ohio), Grand Excursion to New Orleans

     Dear loved ones were unceremoniously hurried off home, irregardless to any previous arrangement, where they could sit down and recount the incidents of the trip to those who had been left behind

   • 1898, John Murray, Memorials of John Murray of Broughton: Sometime Secretary to Prince Charles Edward, 1740-1747, page 160, printed at the University Press by T. and A. Constable for the Scottish History Society

     Mr. M^cg., far from being unsusceptable of flattery, irregardless of his own private interest, readily assented, and had a paper dictated to him to the following purpose:

   • 1995 January, Katalin É. Kiss (editor), Discourse Configurational Languages, page 67, Oxford University Press, USA

     Object resumptive pronouns corresponding to arguments must always occur...irregardless of the presence and position of the full coindexed object nps.

   • 2003 December 22, Judge Wallace, Jonathan C. Shaw v. Cal Terhune, No. 02-16829, U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

     the crime by definition allowed for the prosecution of both defendants irregardless of which defendant physically pulled the trigger.

   • 2005 February, Karim Murji and John Solomos, Racialization: Studies In Theory And Practice, page 38, Oxford University Press

     Again following Runciman, whether we agree with the biological race concept or not, its continued formal and informal salience confirms that competing racial understandings exist irregardless of whether they are valid truths or subjective speculations.

Usage notes

• Although well attested, this term is widely regarded as nonstandard and an illiteracy for regardless or irrespective, and is inappropriate in virtually any formal setting, except in quoted dialog.

Dictionary notes

• Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh edition revised (2006) regards irregardless as incorrect in standard English.
• First acknowledged by the Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary (1912) as originating in western Indiana
• Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition (1934) labels irregardless as erroneous or humorous.
• The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary labels irregardless as ‘chiefly N. Amer. (nonstandard or joc.)’.
• This term is notably omitted from the Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1910), Fowler’s Modern English Usage (1965) and Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus (1992)