insentient

American  

[in-sen-shee-uhnt, -shuhnt] / ɪnˈsɛn ʃi ənt, -ʃənt /

adjective

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

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insentient British  

/ ɪnˈsɛnʃɪənt /

adjective

1. rare lacking consciousness or senses; inanimate

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Other Word Forms

• insentience
  noun
• insentiency
  noun

Etymology

Origin of insentient

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

Explanation

Being insentient means having no ability to feel or understand. There's no need to apologize to an insentient chair leg when you accidentally kick it. Insentient is the opposite of sentient, or "capable of feeling," which comes from the Latin sentire, "to feel." If something's insentient, it has no senses and can't feel physical or emotional pain or pleasure. People once commonly believed that animals fell into this category, but today most agree that animals are conscious, feeling beings rather than insentient objects. You probably think of trees as insentient, but some scientists suspect that even plants might have sensory abilities!

Example Sentences

“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 • Sep. 24, 2019

There, with the ability to talk to the unresponsive living, his nerves "insentient now as string," he longs even for the pain of Hell.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

"But what harm will it be if there is no perception of a thing's being insentient?"

From The Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha Review of the Different Systems of Hindu Philosophy by Acharya, Madhava

Their legs have become idle, almost insentient twigs.

From Fantasia of the Unconscious by Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)