INSENSATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does insensate mean? 

• INSENSATE (adjective)
  The adjective INSENSATE has 2 senses:

1. devoid of feeling and consciousness and animation

2. without compunction or human feeling

  Familiarity information: INSENSATE used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INSENSATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Devoid of feeling and consciousness and animation

Synonyms:

insensate; insentient

Context example:

insentient (or insensate) stone

Similar:

unfeeling (devoid of feeling or sensation)

Attribute:

sentience (the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Without compunction or human feeling

Synonyms:

cold; cold-blooded; inhuman; insensate

Context example:

insensate destruction

Similar:

inhumane (lacking and reflecting lack of pity or compassion)

 Context examples 

The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter—the other, without doubt, had been carried away by the murderer.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)