Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Lacking sensation or awareness; inanimate.
  • adjective Unconscious.
  • adjective Lacking sensibility; unfeeling.
  • adjective Lacking sense or the power to reason.
  • adjective Foolish; witless.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not endowed with sense; destitute of the power of feeling; naturally senseless; inanimate.
  • Wanting or deprived of sense; destitute of natural sense or feeling; stupid.
  • Marked by want of sense or feeling; manifesting insensibility; irrational; maniacal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Wanting sensibility; destitute of sense; stupid; foolish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.
  • adjective Senseless; foolish; irrational.
  • adjective Unfeeling, heartless, cruel, insensitive.
  • adjective medicine, physiology Not responsive to sensory stimuli.
  • noun One who is insensate.
  • verb rare To render insensate; to deprive of sensation or consciousness

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective devoid of feeling and consciousness and animation
  • adjective without compunction or human feeling

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin īnsēnsātus : in-, not; see in– + sēnsus, understanding, reason; see sense.]

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Examples

  • There must always be something shocking in the sacrifice of the higher life to the lower, of the sensate to what we are pleased to call the insensate, although no one who has studied the marvellously intelligent motives that impel a plant's activities can any longer consider the vegetable creation as lacking sensibility.

    Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Neltje Blanchan 1891

  • Oftentimes, someone may become insensate, meaning they don't have any feeling on one side of their body or they have weakness on one side of their body.

    CNN Transcript Jun 30, 2009 2009

  • Oftentimes someone may become insensate, meaning they don't have any feeling on one side of their body or they have weakness on one side of the body.

    CNN Transcript Jun 30, 2009 2009

  • Describing the women's attackers as "insensate" ( 'Lacking sense or the power to reason;' 'Foolish; witless'), the traditional leaders said the actions of Ngcukana's attackers were not only "barbaric", but unconstitutional in that they violated gender discrimination provisions.

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2008

  • The very sight of Tony, bringing with it, as it did, a quickened rush of torturing remembrance, filled him with a kind of insensate fury.

    The Vision of Desire Margaret Pedler

  • She loved him as true women love, with that sublime self-sacrifice which only desires the happiness of the thing beloved; yet a kind of insensate rage stirred for once in her gentle soul to think that the mere sight of a strange woman with dark eyes, -- a woman whom no one knew anything about, and who was by some people deemed a mere adventuress, -- should have so overwhelmed this man whose genius she had deemed superior to fleeting impressions.

    Ziska Marie Corelli 1889

  • State courts had already ruled repeatedly and consistently that the tube feeding should be discontinued, consistent with her expressed wishes prior to the event that rendered her insensate.

    Barbara Coombs Lee: The Schiavo Case Seven Years Later Barbara Coombs Lee 2012

  • Some die on the table, but far more end up never walking again, having permanent colostomies, or just a dysfunctional and insensate genital mess due to inexperienced surgeons.

    RIP, Mike Penner « Dating Jesus 2009

  • You had to have your wits about you, for it was a battle in which mighty blows were struck, on one side, and in which cunning was used on the other side -- a struggle between insensate force and intelligence.

    Jack London:Surfing in Hawaii 2010

  • Regarding the insensate thaan, Shar sighed in resignation.

    Star Trek: Typhon Pact Paths of Disharmony Dayton Ward 2011

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