insensate
/ɪnˈsɛn.sət/
insensate adjective: having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.
Adjective
insensate (comparative more insensate, superlative most insensate)
- Having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.
- Since thus divided — equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both — but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.1816, Lord Byron, Diodati - If I might be
Insensate matter
With sensate me
Sitting within,
Harking and prying,
I might begin
To dicker with dying.1928, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Moriturus
- Synonyms:
- insensible, nonsentient, unaware, insensitive
- Antonyms:
- sentient
- Since thus divided — equal must it be
- Senseless; foolish; irrational; thoughtless.
- […]the sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh;—[…]1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in Rob Roy. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst...
- Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears. . . . Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth.1854, Charles Dickens, chapter 13, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- mindless, unreasonable, unwise
- Unfeeling, heartless, cruel, insensitive.
- I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate.1847, Anne Brontë, “ch. 36”, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted, iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point.1904, Frank Norris, “ch. 6”, in A Man's Woman
- Synonyms:
- callous, hardhearted, severe, brutal, cold, hardhanded, cold-eyed, cruel, dour, thick-skinned
- Not responsive to sensory stimuli; unfeeling.
- If the ophthalmic branch is cut the patient must be told about the hazards of having an insensate cornea.1958 June, Edward B. Schlesinger, “Trigeminal Neuralgia”, in American Journal of Nursing, volume 58, number 6, page 854
- The presence of severe pain with a deep plantar foot infection in a diabetic patient is often the first alarming symptom, especially in a patient with a previously insensate foot.2004 Aug. 1, Jeff G. van Baal, “Surgical Treatment of the Infected Diabetic Foot”, in Clinical Infectious Diseases, volume 39, page S126
- Synonyms:
- unreactive, unresponsive
Noun
insensate (plural insensates)
- One who is insensate.
- Here, at any rate, hostility did not assume that slow and sickening form. It was a cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest: determination; not an insensate standing in the way.1873, Thomas Hardy, “chapter 22”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes
Verb
insensate (third-person singular simple present insensates, present participle insensating, simple past and past participle insensated)
- To render insensate; to deprive of sensation or consciousness.
- And this thought, blinding them to all else, insensating them to all emotions but that of vengeance, was thought of Josephine.1915, James Oliver Curwood, “ch. 24”, in God's Country And the Woman
- The train moved on again, keeping us prisoners in a stench-filled car, starving, suffocating, insensated.2002, Shony A. Braun, My Heart Is a Violin, →ISBN, page 60
insensate meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Malayalam
insensate in Tamil
- உணர்ச்சியற்றுப்போன, உணர்வற்ற, மரத்துப்போன, சொரணையற்ற, மடத்தனமான, அறிவற்ற
insensate in Marathi
- medicine, physiology: not responsive
- बधीर badhīr
insensate in Urdu
- احمق, بےدرد, بےجان, بےرحم, بےوقوف, ماؤف
insensate in Malayalam
- insensible, senseless, inert
- സംവേദകത്വമില്ലാത്ത, ബോധമറ്റ, നിസ്സംജ്ഞ, ഓർമ്മ നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ട, പ്രജ്ഞാശൂന്യമായ, ജഡം
Examples of insensate in a sentence
- […]the romping girl teased her . . . and was always trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other.1913, Joseph Conrad, “ch. 6”, in Chance:
- But in his insensate passion for revenge upon one who had all but murdered him, he had forgotten all else but the moment's specious opportunity.1918, Louis Joseph Vance, “ch. 12”, in The False Faces:
- […]the most cold-blooded, callous murders and robberies, the work, on the face of it, of a well-organized band of thugs, brutal, insensate, little better than fiends.1917, Frank L. Packard, “ch. 8”, in The Adventures of Jimmie Dale:
- The innocuous trauma of high pressure jets and bubble massage to the insensate breast and back areas had caused the bruising seen in the picture.2005 Feb. 5, “Minerva”, in BMJ: British Medical Journal, volume 330, number 7486, page . 316:
Synonyms of insensate
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of insensate
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more insensate |
| superlative | most insensate |
| Noun | |
| plural | insensates |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | insensates |
| present participle | insensating |
| past participle | insensated |
| past | insensated |
Origin of insensate
Learned borrowing from Latin īnsēnsātus. By surface analysis, in- + sensate.
From the substantivation of the above adjective. See -ate (noun-forming suffix).
From Latin īnsēnsātus, see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Words formed from insensate
Questions about insensate
- What does insensate mean?
- Insensate means having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.
- What is insensate in Tamil?
- Insensate in Tamil is உணர்ச்சியற்றுப்போன, உணர்வற்ற, மரத்துப்போன. See Insensate meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use insensate in a sentence?
- […]the romping girl teased her . . . and was always trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other.
- What part of speech is insensate?
- Insensate can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce insensate?
- Insensate is pronounced /ɪnˈsɛn.sət/.
Words near insensate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: insensate (page history and authors); insensate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); insensate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); insensate (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-insensate.wav.
Cite this entry: “insensate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/insensate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.