Apathy definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (8)

American Heritage Dictionary (2)

noun Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference.
noun Lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness.

Century Dictionary (3)

Want of feeling; absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement; insensibility; indifference. As the passions are the springs of most of our actions, a state of apathy has come to signify a sort of moral inertia—the absence of all activity or energy. Fleming. Blessed, thrice and nine times blessed be the good St. Nicholas, if I have indeed escaped that apathy which chills the sympathies of age and paralyzes every glow of enthusiasm. Irving, Knickerbocker, p. 294.
Synonyms Indifference, Insensibility, Impassibility, Apathy, Stoicism, Unconcern, Phlegm, Calmness, torpor, coldness, coolness, unfeelingness, lethargy, immobility. (See list under indifference.) Indifference denotes absence of feeling, passion, or desire toward a particular object: as, indifference to pain or ridicule. Apathy commonly implies a general want of feeling, a complete indifference in regard to anything, due to want of interest or attention, as in the case of a repressed or sluggish intellect, or of extreme illness or affliction. Insensibility and impassibility suggest the lack of capacity for feeling, or an absence of susceptibility, being qualities rather than states of mind. Indifference arising from impassibility relates more particularly to internal, that arising from insensibility to external, impressions; the former is, moreover, more profound and radical than the latter. Indifference may be an entirely proper state under the circumstances; insensibility and impassibility are always at least to be pitied; unconcern is always and indifference sometimes blameworthy, as cold and selfish. Stoicism is a studied suppression of feeling, or the concealment especially of painful feeling by force of will. Unconcern is absence of solicitude. (See care.) Phlegm most suggestive of physical temperament; it is a constitutional dullness or sluggishness, an incapability of being aroused by anything. Calmness is a tranquillity resulting from the mastery of the will over passions and feelings that perhaps are strong and keen, and hence is always commendable. With the instinct of long habit he turned and faced the battery of eyes with the same cold indifference with which he had for years encountered the half-hidden sneers of man. Bret Harte, Argonauts, p. 126. Unbelief might result from the insensibility engendered by a profligate life. G. P. Fisher, Begin. of Christianity, p. 139. I threw myself on my bed, … resisting no longer, but awaiting my fate with the apathy of despair. B. Taylor, Lands of the Saracen, p. 146. The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort…. This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the savage. Irving, Sketch-Book, p. 370. Still less respectable appears this extreme concern for those of our own blood which goes along with the unconcern for those of other blood, when we observe its methods. H. Spencer, Sins of Legislators, ii. One likes in a companion a phlegm which it is a triumph to disturb. Emerson, Clubs. Sir, 'tis fit You make strong party, or defend yourself By calmness, or by absence; all's in anger. Shak., Cor., iii. 2.
In the Stoic philos., a certain imperturbability produced in the wise man's soul by sincere rejection of the notion that pleasure is in itself desirable, or pain in itself undesirable and by trained watchfulness to exclude all unreasonable passions (all passions affecting conduct being regarded as unreasonable).

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Capable of the fiercest momentary excitement, he quickly subsided into a state of complete apathy which is pain-proof. — Mystics and Saints of Islam
Instead of the sweetness of revenge, I feel only indifference, for I realize as never before how I magnified your importance, that I looked at you through the wrong end of the telescope; and along with my apathy is a feeling of dismay that I have spent all these years working to retaliate upon foes that are not worth what it has cost. — The Fighting Shepherdess
This is the best evidence that inroads are being made into that natural apathy which is content with mediocrity or even inferiority.
And He still meets with these three kinds of treatment--apathy, antipathy, sympathy. — The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion
Nothing but your own apathy, your feeble and limited desire, limits this realisation. — Practical Mysticism A Little Book for Normal People

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indifference · indolence · lethargy · stupidity · inactivity · languor · carelessness · dejection · weariness · insensibility · inattention · boredom

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Latin apathīa, from Greek apatheia, from apathēs, without feeling : a-, without; see a-¹ + pathos, feeling; see k^went(h)- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (1)

from Latin apathia, from Greek ἀπάθεια, insensibility, from ἀπαθής, insensible, impassive, from á- privative + πἀθος, suffering, sensation, from παθεῖν, suffer, feel.

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