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

The researchers added that small and medium-sized unmanned undersea vehicles are cheap, can be used in large numbers, and remove risks to military crews. — Sujita Sinha, Interesting Engineering, 6 Aug. 2026

The startup was founded in 2024 and immediately took off, expanding from unmanned boats to aerial drones, and land drones. — Louisa Moller, CBS News, 5 Aug. 2026

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions — The maker of unmanned systems for the military rose 10% in premarket trading. — Davis Giangiulio, CNBC, 5 Aug. 2026

Brex's Kasper Koczab reports advertisers are now requesting unmanned blimps with company logos, as traditional billboards have become prohibitively expensive and unavailable. — Boaz Sobrado, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2026

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