Not controlled by rules — with no government, no law, and no official body watching over it. You will meet this word most often in writing about money, work, and health: an unregulated market, an unregulated industry, unregulated lending, unregulated working hours, unregulated supplements. "The industry is almost completely unregulated." Behind the word there is nearly always an argument. When a writer calls something unregulated, they usually mean it should not be — that without rules, ordinary people are being cheated, or hurt, or put in danger. So the word tends to arrive alongside worry: unregulated care homes, an unregulated crypto market, unregulated online gambling. It is one of the strongest quiet criticisms English has for a system. But not everyone hears it as criticism. People who dislike government control use the same word approvingly — an unregulated market, in their mouth, means one that is free and working properly. The word itself is neutral; the argument is in the room, not in the letters. Notice also the difference between unregulated and deregulated. Unregulated means the rules were never there. Deregulated means there were rules and a government took them away. Newspapers use them very differently, and students often blur the two.