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
View gallery - 3 images Hyundai has donated four super-tough unmanned robotic vehicles to firefighters in Korea for use in high-risk situations.
—
New Atlas, 8 Mar. 2026
Simply put, a torpedo is effectively a small, unmanned submersible – a kind of hybrid of a mini-submarine and a missile, designed to attack both submarines and surface ships.
—James Dwyer, Fortune, 6 Mar. 2026
The team claims that the unmanned aerial vehicle is more than 20 percent lighter than comparable carbon-fiber models and can reduce structural costs by more than 20 percent.
—Sujita Sinha, Interesting Engineering, 5 Mar. 2026
Both troops were stationed at the Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait, where the others were killed in an unmanned aerial strike.
—Jeanine Santucci, USA Today, 5 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for unmanned
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New Atlas, 8 Mar. 2026
Simply put, a torpedo is effectively a small, unmanned submersible – a kind of hybrid of a mini-submarine and a missile, designed to attack both submarines and surface ships.
—James Dwyer, Fortune, 6 Mar. 2026
The team claims that the unmanned aerial vehicle is more than 20 percent lighter than comparable carbon-fiber models and can reduce structural costs by more than 20 percent.
—Sujita Sinha, Interesting Engineering, 5 Mar. 2026
Both troops were stationed at the Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait, where the others were killed in an unmanned aerial strike.
—Jeanine Santucci, USA Today, 5 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for unmanned
Cite this Entry
“Unmanned.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unmanned. Accessed 13 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
unmanned
adjective
un·manned
ˌən-ˈmand 
ˈən-
: having no crew aboard
an unmanned spacecraft
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