Irregardless or regardless?
irregardless is an adjective meaning “Irrespective, regardless”; regardless is an adverb meaning “Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) regardless is about 269 times as common as irregardless.
What is the difference between irregardless and regardless?
| irregardless | regardless | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adverb, adjective, preposition |
| Meaning | Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences Anyway; irrespective of what has just been said Paying no attention to; ignoring | |
| Example | none recorded | Tatiana knew the meat had passed its expiry date, but she ate it regardless |
| Pronunciation | /ˌɪɹɪˈɡɑːdlɪs/ /-ləs/ /ˌɪɹɪˈɡɑɹdlɪs/ | /ɹɪˈɡɑɹd.lɪs/ /ɹɪˈɡɑːd.lɪs/ |
| In writing | about once in every 9 million words | 30 times per million words |
Sources: irregardless and regardless in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of irregardless and regardless
regardless
- 1
Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences
Tatiana knew the meat had passed its expiry date, but she ate it regardless
- 2
Paying no attention to; ignoring
- 3
proscribedSynonym of regardless of; paying no attention to
Tatiana ate the cauliflower regardless its colour
- 4
Anyway; irrespective of what has just been said
The proposal may become law, or it may not. Regardless, we will adopt it as a club rule
- 5
Taking insufficient regard of; heedless; careless
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, irregardless or regardless?
irregardless appears about once in every 9 million words; regardless 30 times per million words.
irregardless about once in every 9 million wordsregardless 30 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search irregardless vs regardless?
“irregardless vs regardless” is searched about 8,100 times a month on Google and 160 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“regardless vs irregardless”, “irregardless or regardless”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.