UNKINDNESS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unkindness mean? 

• UNKINDNESS (noun)
  The noun UNKINDNESS has 1 sense:

1. lack of sympathy

  Familiarity information: UNKINDNESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNKINDNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Lack of sympathy

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("unkindness" is a kind of...):

insensitiveness; insensitivity (the inability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "unkindness"):

unhelpfulness (an inability to be helpful)

inconsiderateness; inconsideration; thoughtlessness (the quality of failing to be considerate of others)

Antonym:

kindness (the quality of being warmhearted and considerate and humane and sympathetic)

Derivation:

unkind (deficient in humane and kindly feelings)

unkind (lacking kindness)

 Context examples 

The unkindness of your own relations has made you astonished to find friendship any where.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Pray let us be friends, said my mother, I couldn't live under coldness or unkindness.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She wished, by a gentle remonstrance, to remind Isabella of her situation, and make her aware of this double unkindness; but for remonstrance, either opportunity or comprehension was always against her.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

And they will now see their cousin treated as she ought to be, and I wish they may be heartily ashamed of their own abominable neglect and unkindness.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her brothers and sister.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon of Malvoisie,” said the prince, cheerily.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The possibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing remained therefore to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be otherwise explained.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Lessons in patience were so sweetly taught her that she could not fail to learn them, charity for all, the lovely spirit that can forgive and truly forget unkindness, the loyalty to duty that makes the hardest easy, and the sincere faith that fears nothing, but trusts undoubtingly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without enjoying its advantages.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)