unresponsive

adjective

un·​re·​spon·​sive ˌən-ri-ˈspän(t)-siv 

: not responsive

The patient was unresponsive.

an infection unresponsive to antibiotics

an unresponsive bureaucracy

Although they are able to locate their own food at two weeks of age, fledgling robins will still piteously beg handouts from their increasingly unresponsive father.

—Millard H. Sharp

unresponsively adverb

staring unresponsively

unresponsiveness noun

Examples of unresponsive in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Prince was found unresponsive the morning of April 21, 2016, and was pronounced dead by medical personnel shortly after. —Alex Gurley, PEOPLE, 21 Apr. 2026

Jaxon died April 9 after being found unresponsive five days earlier in the San Jose home of a cousin who had been caring for him as a foster parent for about six weeks. —Julia Prodis Sulek, Mercury News, 20 Apr. 2026

Around the same time, Pittsburgh Police were called to the city's Bedford Dwellings neighborhood for a ShotSpotter alert along Chauncey Drive, where officers found an unresponsive man in a courtyard. —Mike Darnay, CBS News, 20 Apr. 2026

There, officers found the unresponsive man and requested emergency medical services, who pronounced the victim dead at the scene, Becchina said. —Kansas City Star, 20 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1768, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for unresponsive

• nonresponsive
• responsive

Medical Definition

unresponsive

adjective

un·​re·​spon·​sive ˌən-ri-ˈspän(t)-siv 

: not responsive (as to a stimulus or treatment)

an unresponsive ulcer

unresponsiveness noun