1
as in ruthless
having or showing a lack of sympathy or tender feelings
gave the homeless people on the street only an unfeeling glance
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in numb
lacking in sensation or feeling
her heart was as cold and hard as the unfeeling marble statue in her garden
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in inanimate
lacking animate awareness or sensation
she spoke politely even to the unfeeling virtual assistant on her phone
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of unfeeling
Al Pacino has a small but memorable role as Hall’s father, presented as so greedy and unfeeling as to force us to think that maybe Kiritsis had a legitimate axe to grind.
—
Mick Lasalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Jan. 2026
Then, the men had to walk around as these unfeeling, aggressive, hyper-masculine creatures.
—Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 28 May 2025
So much modern football is mechanical and unfeeling; Joao Felix is loose and breezy.
—Jack Lang, The Athletic, 9 Feb. 2025
The adversarial shapes work on humans, too—wearing thimbles to emulate the cold unfeeling steel of a robot and using two fingers in a pinching grasp, the researchers were able to verify that the objects were hard to pick up.
—IEEE Spectrum, 9 July 2019
See All Example Sentences for unfeeling
Mick Lasalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Jan. 2026
Then, the men had to walk around as these unfeeling, aggressive, hyper-masculine creatures.
—Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 28 May 2025
So much modern football is mechanical and unfeeling; Joao Felix is loose and breezy.
—Jack Lang, The Athletic, 9 Feb. 2025
The adversarial shapes work on humans, too—wearing thimbles to emulate the cold unfeeling steel of a robot and using two fingers in a pinching grasp, the researchers were able to verify that the objects were hard to pick up.
—IEEE Spectrum, 9 July 2019
See All Example Sentences for unfeeling
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unfeeling
Adjective
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Others think Davie’s ruthless headcount reductions led to a brain drain, which in turn precipitated editorial errors that ultimately led to his resignation.—
Jake Kanter,
Deadline,
2 Apr. 2026
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Typewriters, stationery, fine-art museums, the quintessential impressionist painter—these are all associated with taste, beauty, and craft, as well as with intentionality and care, the opposite of the ruthless technological efficiency that repels many from generative AI.—
Matteo Wong,
The Atlantic,
25 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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The roof is a manual Sky Slider design that feels a lot more on-brand than a numb push-button.—
Caleb Jacobs,
The Drive,
26 Mar. 2026
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Over time, your extremities go numb, which indicates the beginning of frostbite.—
Brad Stulberg,
Outside,
26 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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On the morning after the hurricane, these objects revert to their inanimate status quo—but the deviation has been recorded, as fiction.—
Hannah Gold,
Harpers Magazine,
24 Mar. 2026
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Its lifeworld, its temporal and spatial perspective, contrasts with the human, rendering our characters as distant, as inanimate, as the stelae and sculptures that surround them.—
Ben Lerner,
The New York Review of Books,
19 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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The end was swift and merciless.—
Paul Sullivan,
Chicago Tribune,
29 Mar. 2026
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And the bracket carnage was swift and merciless.—
Ryan Brennan,
Kansas City Star,
20 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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When Bill’s older brother Henry (Barry Ward) finds the pianist in numbed solitude in his dingy apartment, Bill has canceled all his upcoming gigs, saying Scotty cannot be replaced.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
13 Feb. 2026
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Ingber also notes the numbed response to these strikes from much of the American public, something that, in part, may come from the routine nature of these drone strikes as something that the nation has become desensitized to dropping bombs on enemies.—
Rebecca Schneid,
Time,
21 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, a 52-year-old father and Los Angeles resident, died Wednesday, March 25 after being found unconscious and unresponsive inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, ICE officials stated in a news release.—
Ryanne Mena,
Daily News,
31 Mar. 2026
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One security officer was struck by the vehicle and briefly knocked unconscious but did not suffer life‑threatening injuries.—
Andrew Stanton,
MSNBC Newsweek,
30 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Except every movie tends to get five buckets, while the rest of their time curdles into Tim sharing too much about his personal life as Gregg stares on, his stony, Buster Keaton-like face saying nothing and everything.—
Christopher Borrelli,
Chicago Tribune,
19 Mar. 2026
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That same stony resistance stymied Henry’s next attempt at commercial success, a parasol with a snap-on cover that could be changed to match a woman’s outfit.—
Shoshi Parks,
Popular Science,
19 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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He was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in 2017 after being found asleep in a car that had its motor running and was still in a driving lane.—
Pat Saperstein,
Variety,
31 Mar. 2026
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This can have an impact on falling (and staying) asleep, as well as sleep quality.—
Desireé Oostland,
Vogue,
31 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Unfeeling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unfeeling. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.
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