nonchalant

non·cha·lant

adjective \ˌnän-shə-ˈlänt; ˈnän-shə-ˌlänt, -lənt\

Definition of NONCHALANT

: having an air of easy unconcern or indifference

— non·cha·lant·ly adverb

Examples of NONCHALANT

1. He was surprisingly nonchalant about winning the award.
2. She faced the crowd with the nonchalant ease of an experienced speaker.
3. The team may have been somewhat nonchalant at the beginning of the season, but they now know that they need to work hard.
4. In those stories, we already find the qualities the world would come to know as “Kafkaesque”: the nonchalant intrusion of the bizarre and horrible into everyday life, the subjection of ordinary people to an inscrutable fate. —Adam Kirsch, New York Times Book Review, 4 Jan. 2009
5. … watch his iron-backed posture as he rides a horse and listen to the nonchalant way in which, not barking but speaking he says “Fire” to the line of infantry, like someone asking for a light. —John Updike, New Yorker, 30 Sept. 2002
6. He and Anita (and an ancient, nonchalant Lhasa apso …) live in a gated community, surrounded by high, vine-covered walls, redolent of Wrigley, that embrace a golf club and an attractive thicket of large houses … —Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, 19 Mar. 2001
7. It was thrilling to watch them, the regulars, so nonchalant, so composed as they slipped from Senate cloakroom to Senate hideaway, sharing jokes with powerful men old enough to be their fathers. —Ward Just, New York Times Book Review, 28 May 1989

Origin of NONCHALANT

French, from Old French, from present participle of nonchaloir to disregard, from non- + chaloir to concern, from Latin calēre to be warm — more at lee

First Known Use: circa 1734

Related to NONCHALANT

Synonyms

apathetic, casual, complacent, disinterested, incurious, insensible, insouciant, indifferent, perfunctory, pococurante, unconcerned, uncurious, uninterested

Antonyms

concerned, interested

Related Words

halfhearted, lukewarm, tepid; aloof, cold, numb, remote, unemotional; callous, hard-hearted, insensitive, unfeeling; calm, cool, detached, dispassionate; careless, heedless, mindless; impassive, impervious, phlegmatic, stoic (or stoical), stolid; lethargic, listless; unimpressed

Near Antonyms

attentive, aware, conscientious, heedful, mindful; caring, sensitive, warmhearted; ardent, fervent, keen, passionate, warm, zealous

See Synonym Discussion at cool

Rhymes with NONCHALANT

bon vivant, commandant, complaisant, debridement, debutant, debutante, dilettante, John of Gaunt, intrigant, poste restante, symbiont