English edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From Middle English unfulfillen, equivalent to un- +‎ fulfill.

Verb edit

unfulfill (third-person singular simple present unfulfills, present participle unfulfilling, simple past and past participle unfulfilled)

  1. (transitive, US) to not fulfill; stop short of fulfillment or completion
    • 1905, Cases and Points of the Supreme Court of the United States:
      He declares that when he was bachelor he had love relations with a woman whose name he cannot state and from which relations a child was borne by the name of Domingo, of forty three years of age, and who was baptized in the parish of Mandurriao, Iloilo, by the name of Domingo of unknown parents, and he being not willing to unfulfill the duties of his conscience and those which the nature imposes upon him, []
    • 2009, Bettina Bergo, Joseph Cohen, Raphael Zagury-Orly, Judeities:
      Between the fulfillment to "unfulfill" and the unfulfillment to fulfill (to borrow Benjamin's messianic terms), the remnant is indeed the prophetic name of a birthing and an interruption, of a beyond to every "goal" in Hegel's sense: []
    • 2009, Jacob Butkiewicz, The Book of Sayings:
      The devil will employ anything for you to unfulfill your purpose.

Antonyms edit