unresponsive
Britishadjective
Explanation
If someone can't or won't respond, we call them unresponsive. Depending on the context, a person's unresponsiveness can be just a bummer or a life-threatening condition. Take this word piece by piece. Un- means "not," as usual. A response is a reaction to something. And -ive is a suffix that means "state of being." Taken together, these parts add up to "the state of being not responsive." When your boyfriend just sits and stares rather than talking about what's bothering him, he's being unresponsive. Medically speaking, when a person is called unresponsive, it means they're at least unconscious, and possibly dead or dying.
Vocabulary lists containing unresponsive
100 SAT Words Beginning with "U"
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The Secret Garden
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The purpose of the Bradley coalition, Sonenshein said, was to “break open the stranglehold of a city establishment that was ... unresponsive to the diversity of the community.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 31, 2026
The woman, who has not been identified, was found unresponsive by officers who responded about 6 p.m.
From Los Angeles Times • May 15, 2026
Erik Fleming became the fourth of five people to be sentenced in connection with the death of the Canadian star, who was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in 2023.
From Barron's • May 13, 2026
But she described her newborn as "purple" and unresponsive.
From BBC • Apr. 23, 2026
They were formal and brief and said things like “Maribel is unresponsive and unengaged, even when she is directly addressed in Spanish.”
From "The Book of Unknown Americans" by Cristina Henríquez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
