Insensate

From Latin Ä«nsÄ“nsÄtus.

Full definition of insensate

1816, Lord Byron, Diodati:Since thus divided — equal must it beIf the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;It may be both — but one day end it mustIn the dark union of insensate dust.
1928, Edna_St._Vincent_Millay, "Moriturus":If I might beInsensate matterWith sensate meSitting within,Harking and prying,I might beginTo dicker with dying.

1818, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, ch. 13:The sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh.
1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times, ch. 13:Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears. . . . Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth.
1913, Joseph Conrad, Chance, ch. 6:The romping girl teased her . . . and was always trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other.
1918, Louis Joseph Vance, The False Faces, ch. 12:But in his insensate passion for revenge upon one who had all but murdered him, he had forgotten all else but the moment's specious opportunity.

1847, Anne BrontÃ«, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,ch. 36:I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate.
1904, Frank Norris, A Man's Woman, ch. 6:That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted, iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point.
1917, Frank L. Packard, The Adventures of Jimmie Dale, ch. 8:. . . the most cold-blooded, callous murders and robberies, the work, on the face of it, of a well-organized band of thugs, brutal, insensate, little better than fiends.

1958 June, Edward B. Schlesinger, "Trigeminal Neuralgia," American Journal of Nursing, vol. 58, no. 6, p. 854:If the ophthalmic branch is cut the patient must be told about the hazards of having an insensate cornea.
2004 Aug. 1, Jeff G. van Baal, "Surgical Treatment of the Infected Diabetic Foot," Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 39, p. S126:The presence of severe pain with a deep plantar foot infection in a diabetic patient is often the first alarming symptom, especially in a patient with a previously insensate foot.
2005 Feb. 5, "Minerva," BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 330, no. 7486, p. 316:The innocuous trauma of high pressure jets and bubble massage to the insensate breast and back areas had caused the bruising seen in the picture.

(plural insensates)

1873, Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes, ch. 22:Here, at any rate, hostility did not assume that slow and sickening form. It was a cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest: determination; not an insensate standing in the way.