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as in unconscious
having lost consciousness if a choking person is insensible, you should lay them down on their back before performing the Heimlich maneuver

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as in insensate
lacking animate awareness or sensation even the canyon's insensible rocks seemed to mock the stranded climber's utter helplessness

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of insensible Para añadir más ofensas, YouTube TV decidió tomar esta medida durante el Mes de la Herencia Hispana, un acto profundamente insensible y ofensivo. Todd Spangler, Variety, 1 Oct. 2025 Also invited, for insensible reasons, is Neville’s first wife, Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland), blond to Kay’s brunette, for easy identification. Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2025 The ‘real’ Camille, meanwhile, has become an insensible, comatose carcass, although no one seems to notice. Damon Wise, Deadline, 24 Jan. 2025 Foreman tumbled downward in a dizzy, slow-motion-like crash, full-weight, a helpless giant, insensible. Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone, 17 Jan. 2025 Or lobbyists can sometimes intervene and gain insensible exemptions from bans. IEEE Spectrum, 10 Feb. 2024 The novel positions him as insensible to agendas, hopelessly subject to the whims of the altruistic and the cruel. Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2022
Recent Examples of Synonyms for insensible
Adjective
  • After ambushing Fuller at her mansion, Teddy and his accomplice/cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) knock her unconscious with a tranquilizer and load her into the backseat of her own car.
    Lauren Huff, Entertainment Weekly, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Westerman’s Toyota minivan was discovered lying on its roof about 30 feet deep in Monterey Bay, and rescue swimmers broke a window to pull him out, unconscious.
    Ethan Baron, Mercury News, 29 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Why call my own identity invisible?
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 4 Nov. 2025
  • The invisible primary for president will take place from Tuesday, to a year from Tuesday.
    Ted Johnson, Deadline, 3 Nov. 2025
Adjective
  • Backing the nonchalant trio were multiple percussionists on wind chimes, congas, shakers, and more, as well as backup singers, a bassist, and an additional guitarist.
    Nina Corcoran, Pitchfork, 28 Oct. 2025
  • Meanwhile, a debonair and nonchalant judge, Roland Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), who has arranged George’s loan for the expensive property, is also dallying with Hedda and plots to use his influence—his power, rather—to tighten their extramarital bond.
    Richard Brody, New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • The brain, like other internal organs, is insensate, its lack of sensory receptors attested by videos of virtuoso violinists who play on unfazed as neurosurgeons go to work inside their skulls.
    Matthew Ponsford, WIRED, 19 Sep. 2024
  • But states have used midazolam alone — and at much higher doses — in executions since 2013, claiming the drug will render people insensate to pain before the administration of other lethal injection drugs.
    Lauren Gill, ProPublica, 29 Apr. 2023
Adjective
  • Who decides what’s decorous and what’s vulgar?
    Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, 25 Oct. 2025
  • The president has been targeting Jeffries online with offensive and vulgar memes since the pair first had an unsuccessful sit-down meeting in the Oval Office just before the shutdown.
    Zachary Schermele, USA Today, 9 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • In fact, the term itself was an epithet throughout the founding era, a way to describe ignorant and easily deceived popular majorities, perpetually vulnerable to demagogues.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 28 Oct. 2025
  • International students are close to entirely ignorant of Canadian history and politics.
    Dónal Gill, The Dial, 28 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Caplan-Auerbach is studying nearly imperceptible seismic tremors that have preceded major landslides, including the August one in Tracy Arm.
    Ella Nilsen, CNN Money, 22 Oct. 2025
  • For most folks watching at home, the change was imperceptible.
    Dieter Kurtenbach, Mercury News, 20 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • The dress code was casual for the at-home event, with Khloé wearing a brown and white cow-print, loose-fitting onesie.
    Angel Saunders, PEOPLE, 2 Nov. 2025
  • Best Restaurants Forte Restaurant Modern Italian dishes are on the menu at Forte, a casual spot in Kananaskis Village.
    Lisa Kadane, Travel + Leisure, 2 Nov. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Insensible.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/insensible. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.

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