insensate

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English[edit]

WOTD – 19 October 2011

Etymology[edit]

From Latin īnsēnsātus.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ɪnˈsɛn.sət/
    • Audio (Southern England)(file)

Adjective[edit]

insensate (comparative more insensate, superlative most insensate)

  1. Having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.
    • 1816, Lord Byron, Diodati:
      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.
    • 1928, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Moriturus:
      If I might be
      Insensate matter
      With sensate me
      Sitting within,
      Harking and prying,
      I might begin
      To dicker with dying.
  2. Senseless; foolish; irrational.
  3. Unfeeling, heartless, cruel, insensitive.
    • 1847, Anne Brontë, “ch. 36”, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
      I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate.
    • 1904, Frank Norris, “ch. 6”, in A Man's Woman:
      That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted, iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point.
    • 1917, Frank L. Packard, “ch. 8”, in The Adventures of Jimmie Dale:
      […] 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.
  4. (medicine, physiology) Not responsive to sensory stimuli.
    • 1958 June, Edward B. Schlesinger, “Trigeminal Neuralgia”, in American Journal of Nursing, volume 58, number 6, page 854:
      If the ophthalmic branch is cut the patient must be told about the hazards of having an insensate cornea.
    • 2004 Aug. 1, Jeff G. van Baal, “Surgical Treatment of the Infected Diabetic Foot”, in Clinical Infectious Diseases, volume 39, page S126:
      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.
    • 2005 Feb. 5, “Minerva”, in BMJ: British Medical Journal, volume 330, number 7486, page . 316:
      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.

Antonyms[edit]

  • (antonym(s) of “having no sensation or consciousness”): sentient

Translations[edit]

Noun[edit]

insensate (plural insensates)

  1. One who is insensate.
    • 1873, Thomas Hardy, “chapter 22”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes:
      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.

Verb[edit]

insensate (third-person singular simple present insensates, present participle insensating, simple past and past participle insensated)

  1. (rare) To render insensate; to deprive of sensation or consciousness.
    • 1915, James Oliver Curwood, “ch. 24”, in God's Country And the Woman‎[1]:
      And this thought, blinding them to all else, insensating them to all emotions but that of vengeance, was thought of Josephine.
    • 2002, Shony A. Braun, My Heart Is a Violin‎[2], →ISBN, page 60:
      The train moved on again, keeping us prisoners in a stench-filled car, starving, suffocating, insensated.

References[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

Italian[edit]

Adjective[edit]

insensate f pl

  1. feminine plural of insensato

Noun[edit]

insensate f pl

  1. plural of insensata

Anagrams[edit]

Latin[edit]

Adjective[edit]

īnsēnsāte

  1. vocative masculine singular of īnsēnsātus
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