Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Lack of physical sensibility; the state of being insensible to physical impressions; absence of feeling or sensation.
  • noun Lack of moral sensibility, or the power to be moved or affected; lack of tenderness or susceptibility of emotion.
  • noun Synonyms Indifference, Insensibility, Impassibility, etc. See apathy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The state or quality of being insensible; lack of sensibility; torpor; unconsciousness.
  • noun Lack of tenderness or susceptibility of emotion or passion; dullness; stupidity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The property of being insensible.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun devoid of passion or feeling; hardheartedness
  • noun a lack of sensibility

Etymologies

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Examples

  • But this _insensibility_, this heartlessness, gives very much the effect of a positive and real ill nature, and M. Bergson had thus simply repeated and expressed in a new way, more precise and correct, the opinion of Aristotle: the cause of laughter is malice mitigated by insensibility or the absence of sympathy.

    Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926

  • Commend me to what you call the insensibility of the

    Debit and Credit Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag Gustav Freytag 1855

  • He has reproached me for what he terms my insensibility to his perfections, and says

    Turns of Fortune And Other Tales S. C. Hall 1840

  • For to be without grief having health, that they call insensibility, and not pleasure.

    The Second Book. Of their journeying or travelling abroad, with divers other matters cunningly reasoned, and wittily discussed 1909

  • Thank heaven! we meet with few minds like that of Sir Charles Verville; such a degree of savage insensibility is unnatural.

    The History of Emily Montague 1769

  • They were strangers to that grace of wisdom which is liberally given to all who ask it; and their insensibility was all the more inexcusable that so many miracles had been performed which might have led to a certain conviction of the presence and the power of God with them.

    Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible 1871

  • There is a strange and peculiar sensation experienced in recovering from a state of insensibility, which is almost indescribable: a sort of dreamy, confused consciousness; a half-waking, half-sleeping condition, accompanied with a feeling of weariness, which, however, is by no means disagreeable.

    The Coral Island A Tale of the Pacific Ocean 1859

  • I am very solicitous, both by study and argument, to enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which is in me naturally raised to a pretty degree, so that consequently I espouse and am very much moved with very few things.

    The Essays of Montaigne — Complete Michel de Montaigne 1562

  • I am very solicitous, both by study and argument, to enlarge this privilege of insensibility, which is in me naturally raised to a pretty degree, so that consequently I espouse and am very much moved with very few things.

    The Essays of Montaigne — Volume 18 Michel de Montaigne 1562

  • Moral insensibility, which is decidedly more congenital than contracted, is either total or partial, and is displayed in criminals who inflict personal injuries, as much as in others, with a variety of symptoms which I have recorded elsewhere, and which are eventually reduced to these conditions of the moral sense in a large number of criminals -- a lack of repugnance to the idea and execution of the offence, previous to its commission, and the absence of remorse after committing it.

    Criminal Sociology 1899

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