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.
When emergency responders in Greenville, S.C., found Panettiere in an apartment on Sunday, she was unresponsive and in cardiac arrest.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2026
The actor was found unresponsive at an apartment complex in Greenville, S.C., shortly before 2 p.m.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Arday, 41, was found unresponsive Friday afternoon at an address in south London, according to the capital's Metropolitan Police Service, which did not confirm the identity of the deceased person discovered.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
Kielee Rustici lay face down on her bedroom floor in Ammon, Idaho, unresponsive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
On the third day he seemed to come back into himself, to become aware of the goings-on around him, to listen to our mealtime chatter rather than staring, unresponsive, at the carpet.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
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.
