insentient

[ in-sen-shee-uhnt, -shuhnt ]

adjective

1. not sentient; without sensation or feeling; inanimate.

insentient

/ ɪnˈsɛnʃɪənt /

adjective

1. rare.
   lacking consciousness or senses; inanimate

Derived Forms

• inˈsentience, noun

Other Words From

• in·senti·ence in·senti·en·cy noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of insentient¹

First recorded in 1755–65; in- ³ + sentient

Example Sentences

But its shortcomings are essentially those of the novel: its single-track didacticism; its neat pitting of romantic idealists against macho, insentient normies; and the fact that a decisive plot twist can be spotted a mile off.

From New York Times

Coetzee glimpsed the “plight of existential homelessness” in Beckett’s work as a mind-body problem: “A being that thinks” is “linked somehow to an insentient carcass that it must carry around with it and be carried around in.”

From Los Angeles Times

“I began gradually to stir into another style of life, less theoretical and less optimistic, less vulnerable. I was ready for an insentient middle age,” he wrote in “The Savage God.”

From Seattle Times

It hung over the suspended waves of the hills, an insentient pivot without which the world would not exist.

From Literature

Is Mr. Gerson insentient that numerous other countries on the planet, some very oil-rich, can contribute to the feeding of foreign children?

From Washington Post