UNOBSERVANT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does unobservant mean? 

• UNOBSERVANT (adjective)
  The adjective UNOBSERVANT has 1 sense:

1. not consciously observing

  Familiarity information: UNOBSERVANT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• UNOBSERVANT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not consciously observing

Synonyms:

unobservant; unseeing

Context example:

looked through him with blank unseeing eyes

Similar:

unperceiving; unperceptive (lacking perception)

 Context examples 

He plodded on with bowed head, unobservant, mechanically rubbing nose and cheeks, and batting his steering hand against the gee-pole in the straight trail-stretches.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of analysis and deduction!

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

In each letter he had spoken well of his captain; but yet, so little were they in the habit of attending to such matters, so unobservant and incurious were they as to the names of men or ships, that it had made scarcely any impression at the time; and that Mrs Musgrove should have been suddenly struck, this very day, with a recollection of the name of Wentworth, as connected with her son, seemed one of those extraordinary bursts of mind which do sometimes occur.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Edmund, between his theatrical and his real part, between Miss Crawford's claims and his own conduct, between love and consistency, was equally unobservant; and Mrs. Norris was too busy in contriving and directing the general little matters of the company, superintending their various dresses with economical expedient, for which nobody thanked her, and saving, with delighted integrity, half a crown here and there to the absent Sir Thomas, to have leisure for watching the behaviour, or guarding the happiness of his daughters.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)