inanimate

adjective

(ˌ)i-ˈna-nə-mət How to pronounce inanimate (audio)
Definition of inanimatenext
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

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of inanimate But there are inanimate pets in the cemetery. — Jennie Key, Cincinnati Enquirer, 31 Mar. 2026 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 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 Suddenly, the buildings were not inanimate beings but creatures of memory and scars. — Matthew Carey, Deadline, 16 Mar. 2026 See All Example Sentences for inanimate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for inanimate
  1. unconscious
  2. insensate
  3. unfeeling
  4. insentient
  5. lifeless
Adjective
  • Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud argued that speech errors could reveal hidden wishes or unconscious thoughts.
    — Karen Stollznow, The Conversation, 14 July 2026
  • José Guadalupe Ramos Solano José Guadalupe Ramos Solano, 36, died on March 25, 2026, after being found unconscious at the Adelanto Detention Center, California.
    — Rocío Muñoz-Ledo, CNN Money, 14 July 2026
Definition of unconscious
Adjective
  • 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
  • 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
Definition of insensate
Adjective
  • Readers can judge Jane and me, deciding that one of us was unfeeling or uncomprehending.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 13 July 2026
  • As Micah so nicely puts it, there’s a narrative magnetism to Pitman’s repo encounters, many of which play out as micro-dramas of people in crisis confronting an embodied messenger of the great, unfeeling, deeply unfair American financial system.
    — Austin Elias-de Jesus, New Yorker, 22 June 2026
Definition of unfeeling
Adjective
  • 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
  • Genes are insentient things and cannot be said to have any kind of purposeful selfish or unselfish behavior.
    — Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 14 Sep. 2017
Definition of insentient
Adjective
  • Disney may have abandoned the idea to deepfake Johnson’s body, but his real-life presence is lifeless nonetheless.
    — Gregory Nussen, Deadline, 8 July 2026
  • Lind had to do a lot of wailing upon discovering Rob-Will’s lifeless body, but the waterworks weren’t limited to just her coverage.
    — Brian Davids, HollywoodReporter, 7 July 2026
Definition of lifeless

Browse Nearby Words

inanes
inanimate
inanimately
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Cite this Entry

“Inanimate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inanimate. Accessed 18 Jul. 2026.

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