SENSELESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does senseless mean? 

• SENSELESS (adjective)
  The adjective SENSELESS has 4 senses:

1. not marked by the use of reason

2. unresponsive to stimulation

3. serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being

4. (of especially persons) lacking sense or understanding or judgment

  Familiarity information: SENSELESS used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SENSELESS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not marked by the use of reason

Synonyms:

mindless; reasonless; senseless

Context example:

a senseless act

Similar:

unreasonable (not reasonable; not showing good judgment)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unresponsive to stimulation

Synonyms:

insensible; out of it; senseless

Context example:

drugged and senseless

Similar:

unconscious (not conscious; lacking awareness and the capacity for sensory perception as if asleep or dead)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Serving no useful purpose; having no excuse for being

Synonyms:

otiose; pointless; purposeless; senseless; superfluous; wasted

Context example:

senseless violence

Similar:

worthless (lacking in usefulness or value)

Derivation:

senselessness (total lack of meaning or ideas)

Sense 4

Meaning:

(of especially persons) lacking sense or understanding or judgment

Synonyms:

nitwitted; senseless; soft-witted; witless

Similar:

stupid (lacking or marked by lack of intellectual acuity)

 Context examples 

If she seemed to be senseless, they would not take her life.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The man glared round him, staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You senseless goose! snarled the dwarf; why should you fetch someone?

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

They were too much like joy, senseless joy!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fell senseless on the ground.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must have been senseless for a long time.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The senseless body was thrown across the spare horse, the four sprang to their saddles, and away they thundered with loose reins and busy spurs through the swarming camp.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was as mute and senseless as the box, from which his form derived the only expression it had.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The man struck the shrewd blow he had purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up and went down, knocked utterly senseless.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)