as in unconscious
lacking animate awareness or sensation
"pathetic fallacy" is the literary term for the ascription of human feelings or motives to inanimate natural elements
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Recent Examples of inanimate
The delightful Oscar-winning visual effects combine techniques like the sodium vapor process and wirework to give life to Eglantine’s psychedelic flying bed and other inanimate-no-longer objects.
—
Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 25 Nov. 2024
The brightly colored, inanimate pieces are adaptable across all class and ethnicity barriers, just like pop music.
—Armond White, National Review, 11 Oct. 2024
There were no strict boundaries between space and time, the forces of nature or the animate and inanimate worlds.
—James L. Fitzsimmons, The Conversation, 3 Oct. 2024
That’s why horror movies often have these inanimate emblems that are so terrifying.
—Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for inanimate
Savannah Salazar, Vulture, 25 Nov. 2024
The brightly colored, inanimate pieces are adaptable across all class and ethnicity barriers, just like pop music.
—Armond White, National Review, 11 Oct. 2024
There were no strict boundaries between space and time, the forces of nature or the animate and inanimate worlds.
—James L. Fitzsimmons, The Conversation, 3 Oct. 2024
That’s why horror movies often have these inanimate emblems that are so terrifying.
—Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for inanimate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for inanimate
Adjective
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According to the district attorney’s office, the autopsy also revealed that Bella still may have been alive, although unconscious, when Landon folded her body and stuffed it in the bucket head first.—
Nicole Acosta,
People.com,
6 May 2025
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The pregnant woman, who had been in her second trimester, was found unconscious and not breathing when police arrived at the home, the probable cause said.—
Kate Linderman,
Kansas City Star,
5 May 2025
Adjective
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The brain, like other internal organs, is insensate, its lack of sensory receptors attested by videos of virtuoso violinists who play on unfazed as neurosurgeons go to work inside their skulls.—
Matthew Ponsford,
WIRED,
19 Sep. 2024
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But states have used midazolam alone — and at much higher doses — in executions since 2013, claiming the drug will render people insensate to pain before the administration of other lethal injection drugs.—
Lauren Gill,
ProPublica,
29 Apr. 2023
Adjective
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Tabo turns, in his mother’s eyes, into a cold and unfeeling stone.—
Robert Rubsam,
The Atlantic,
24 Mar. 2025
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So much modern football is mechanical and unfeeling; Joao Felix is loose and breezy.—
Jack Lang,
The Athletic,
9 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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This is partly because the loss of insentient machinery, no matter how expensive, is easier to stomach than the death of an aircrew.—
Lauren Kahn,
Foreign Affairs,
6 June 2023
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But its shortcomings are essentially those of the novel: its single-track didacticism; its neat pitting of romantic idealists against macho, insentient normies; and the fact that a decisive plot twist can be spotted a mile off.—
Houman Barekat,
New York Times,
29 Mar. 2023
Adjective
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Two members of our team quickly went to the area and found Bruno’s lifeless body on the shoulder of the road.—
David Chiu,
People.com,
3 May 2025
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The star guard was lifeless for much of the night in an 3-for-9 performance from the floor.—
Luca Evans,
Denver Post,
29 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Inanimate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inanimate. Accessed 24 May. 2025.
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