impersonality
Americannoun
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impersonalities
plural
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absence of human character or of the traits associated with the human character.
He feared the impersonality of a mechanized world.
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absence or reduction of concern for individual needs or desires.
the impersonality of a very large institution.
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lack of emotional involvement.
His work reflected a certain impersonality.
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lack of a personal agent or of a known personal agent.
the impersonality of folk art.
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the quality of not being concerned with particular persons.
the impersonality and universality of his interests.
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something that is impersonal.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of impersonality
First recorded in 1760–70; impersonal + -ity
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.
See Examples For:
The effect is to emphasize the locations’ impersonality while also conveying a sense of intimacy.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2021
They exude a kind of lushness, avoiding the brittle impersonality and formal melodrama often found in her paintings.
From New York Times ● Jul. 29, 2021
The dark impersonality of these elements provides dramatic contrast for the fleshy, breathing vivacity of the subject’s carefully modeled head.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2019
This myth is absurdly replicated in Adam’s own impersonality and detachment, his schematic and experientially void approach to the art that he admires.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 9, 2018
He had been prepared to sacrifice his wife and his-best friend, to the impersonality of Justice.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Mr. Ochs and Mr. Reid are great conservative impersonalities.
From Time Magazine Archive
These impersonalities were as near "spatting" as Mr. and Mrs. Hodges ever got.
From The Uncalled A Novel by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Its small principality, flourishing when commerce and communication had gone by water, was one of the innumerable victims of progress and of the concentration of effort into huge impersonalities.
From Wild Oranges by Joseph Hergesheimer
Often their talks branched off into impersonalities, of interest to all.
From Marjorie Dean College Freshman by Pauline Lester
Every householder has suffered such moments, and knows by experience the painful pause which ensues before one of the diners bursts vivaciously into impersonalities, but to-day there was no pause.
From An Unknown Lover by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
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.
