INVOLUNTARY in a Sentence

Learn INVOLUNTARY from example sentences; some of them are from classic books. These examples are selected from a corpus with 300,000 sentences, including classic works and current mainstream media. Some sentences also link to their contexts.

41 example sentences for INVOLUNTARY, such as:

1. Anna Sergyevna gave an involuntary shudder.
2. I gasped and took an involuntary step backwards.
3. it might happen, he added with an involuntary smile.
4. said Pierre to himself, and an involuntary shudder ran down his spine.
5. On Carry Fisher's part the withdrawal was perhaps not quite involuntary.

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 Meanings and Examples of INVOLUNTARY
Definition Example Sentence Classic Sentence
involuntary
 a.  acting or done without or against one's will
Classic Sentence: (37 in 3 pages)
1  She held her finger tips out to him cordially, but her face betrayed an involuntary sense of tension.
Fathers and Children By Ivan Turgenev
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXV
2  Anna Sergyevna gave an involuntary shudder.
Fathers and Children By Ivan Turgenev
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXVII
3  Nicholas sat at some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, to whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile.
War and Peace 1 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 1: CHAPTER XVIII
4  "She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve," went the song, arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness.
War and Peace 1 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 2: CHAPTER II
5  Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.
War and Peace 3 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 9: CHAPTER I
6  He was ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary respect by his boundless devotion to an idea.
War and Peace 3 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 9: CHAPTER XI
7  Evidently the terrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole strength of his soul but which yet aroused involuntary horror in him was drawing near.
War and Peace 4 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 10: CHAPTER XVIII
8  With a woman's involuntary loving cunning she, who till then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of fright if they did not leave that very night.
War and Peace 4 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 11: CHAPTER XIII
9  said Pierre to himself, and an involuntary shudder ran down his spine.
War and Peace 5 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 13: CHAPTER XIII
10  it might happen, he added with an involuntary smile.
War and Peace 5 By Leo Tolstoy
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 15: CHAPTER XVIII
11  Selden had listened in silence, with the concentrated look which his thin dark face could assume when he wished to guard it against any involuntary change of expression.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 2: Chapter 8
12  On Carry Fisher's part the withdrawal was perhaps not quite involuntary.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 2: Chapter 10
13  So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever objects are before him.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head—Contrasted View.
14  Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale.
Moby Dick By Herman Melville
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 82. The Honour and Glory of Whaling.
15  With his sudden and, perhaps, involuntary movement, every appearance of surprise or alarm ended.
The Last of the Mohicans By James Fenimore Cooper
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER 19
Example Sentence:
1  A sharp tap on the knee usually causes an involuntary movement of the lower leg.
2  The water was hotter than she had expected, and she gave an involuntary yelp.
3  I gasped and took an involuntary step backwards.
4  After all, the line between voluntary and involuntary is very different in the military than in the civilian world.