unmanned

adjective

un·​manned ˌən-ˈmand 

1

see usage paragraph below : not carrying, staffed, or performed by people : not manned

an unmanned railroad crossing

unmanned spaceflight

2

of a hawk : not trained

Usage of Manned and Unmanned

While manned and unmanned are still commonly used in news sources to describe spaceflights with and without human crews, respectively, NASA has since the early 21st century used and prescribed gender-neutral terms, preferring such descriptors as human, piloted, and crewed for the former, and unpiloted and uncrewed for the latter.

Examples of unmanned in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Boeing will showcase its next-generation, stealth unmanned collaborative combat aircraft at the Dubai Airshow next week. —MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Nov. 2025

Through the integration with Tactical Assault Kit software, the team remotely controlled multiple unmanned ground and surface units across a large, 50-square-mile operational area. —Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 9 Nov. 2025

During an initial search for Kenney, Charleston police deployed multiple resources, including K9 units, an underwater recovery team, the police’s unmanned aerial system team and harbor patrol. —Toria Sheffield, PEOPLE, 8 Nov. 2025

An unmanned aircraft reportedly struck a Hezbollah construction unit's facility near Tyre, a coastal city in southern Lebanon, Israeli news outlet Ynet reported, citing the IDF. —Rachel Wolf , Efrat Lachter, FOXNews.com, 6 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1544, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for unmanned

• ampersand
• beforehand
• behindhand
• bottomland
• contraband
• countermand
• dixieland
• fairyland
• fatherland
• firebrand
• hinterland
• motherland

Kids Definition

unmanned

adjective

un·​manned ˌən-ˈmand 

ˈən-

: having no crew aboard

an unmanned spacecraft