affectless

American  

[af-ekt-lis] / ˈæf ɛkt lɪs /

adjective

1. lacking feeling or emotion; indifferent to the suffering of others.

   an affectless, futuristic drama in which the human characters are virtually robots.

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affectless British  

/ əˈfɛktlɪs /

adjective

1. 1. showing no emotion or concern for others

   2. not giving rise to any emotion or feeling

      an affectless novel

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Other Word Forms

• affectlessly adverb
• affectlessness noun

Etymology

Origin of affectless

First recorded in 1965–70; affect ¹ + -less

Example Sentences

Astrud Gilberto sings “The Girl from Ipanema” in a light, affectless style that influenced Sade and Suzanne Vega among others, as if she had already moved on to other matters.

From Seattle Times • Jun. 6, 2023

The use of an A.I. program to replicate Warhol’s flat, affectless speech to read the diary entries had a strangely fitting logic.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 16, 2022

But Kogonada’s self-conscious style begins to work against the material, with his precisionist aesthetic looking increasingly mannered, the actors’ affectless characterizations lending the proceedings a numb, distanced quality.

From Washington Post • Mar. 2, 2022

And the key to the mystery — not the solution to it but the dark center of it — is Swinton Byrne’s quiet, reserved, at times almost affectless performance.

From New York Times • Dec. 7, 2021

Her replies revealed the fact that she was essentially affectless and that her intellectual processes were interfered with, even to the extent of paragraphic writing.

From Benign Stupors A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type by MacCurdy, John T. (John Thompson)