Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Freedom from selfish bias or self-interest; impartiality.
- n. Lack of interest; indifference.
- v. To divest of interest.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. What is contrary to interest or advantage; disadvantage; injury.
- n. Indifference to profit; want of regard to private advantage.
- To rid of interest; disengage from private interest or advantage; destroy the interest of.
- See disinteressed.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable A lack of interest; indifference; apathy.
- n. uncountable The absence of selfish bias or self-interest; impartiality or detachment.
- v. transitive To render disinterested.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Disinterested.
- n. obsolete What is contrary to interest or advantage; disadvantage.
- n. obsolete Indifference to profit; want of regard to private advantage; disinterestedness.
- v. obsolete To divest of interest or interested motives.
WordNet 3.0
- n. tolerance attributable to a lack of involvement
Etymologies
- From dis- + interest (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Downing Street have released the initial details of Prime Minister Gollum Brown's Cabinet reshuffle to awed disinterest from the world.”
“Author James Bradley has a wonderfully in-depth review of The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham: Yet this disinterest is of a piece with the novel's desire to unsettle not by transporting the reader to a world unknown to them, but by taking the world they know and exposing the assumptions at its core.”
“This calm disinterest is often why many organizations hire arbitrators to help negotiate contracts between say, a union and a company.”
“Everybody wants approval, and disinterest is almost as bad as disapproval.”
“As childish as it sounds, I think my disinterest comes from the lack of physical action in the book.”
“However, touch-screen voters were EIGHT times more likely not to register any vote at all -- obviously a sign of error on the machine's part rather than disinterest from the voter in the booth.”
“Against the explicitly but restrictively political mandates of critical and monumental histories, antiquarian history holds out the ideal of disinterest, even as disinterest is deemed no longer possible.”
Is Literary History the History of Everything? The Case for 'Antiquarian' History
“The Labour Party, if their past performance, and their present disinterest, is any indication, are even more opposed.”
“Which proved she had been listening despite her expression of disinterest in the proceedings and Shari’s explanation of the dance’s origin.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘disinterest’.
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AGRI - horse breeding
driving, implement, Trot, speed, exhale, dope, obstacle, tail, plow, coloration, para, weaving and 678 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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Writer's Block
Things that describe my condition right now.
unwilling, tired, bored, hate, disinterest, stumped, sorry, incoherent, illiterate, depressed, unsatisifed, unmotivated and 35 more...
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Well, Everyone Else Has A Hate-List, ...
When I rule the planet, the undermentioned items shall all be corrrected or expunged. In some cases I don't like the item from a linguistic point of view, in others I don't like what the item repre...
big-box store, ms, wonderation, disinterest, milquetoast, emoticon, herstory, australia, zero-sum game, specialism, assessable, pebblecrete and 52 more...
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a2naphish's Words
capricious, paradigm, harbinger, creamy, articulate, succinct, conversation, tart, serendipitous, defunct, dilapidated, synergy and 18 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for disinterest.
bilby I happen to think the distinction between uninterested and disinterested is worthwhile, hence constructions of the following type are not pleasing:
"But it's there for all to see - his sloth-like administration, his flip-flopping in decision-making and his seeming disinterest in state affairs." - Steven Gan, unreferenced article on the subject of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Coupled with seeming, we have a really rubbery construction. So what's he implying?
- That Badawi seems unbiased (but isn't, only seems so); or
- That Badawi seems unbiased (and is, seeming is believing);
- That Badawi seems apathetic (and is, that's the way it seems); or
- That Badawi seems apathetic (but isn't, only seems so).
Would that I ever find a ruler with a genuine disinterest in state affairs! Dec 4, 2007