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as in unconscious
having lost consciousness if a choking person is insensible, you should lay them down on their back before performing the Heimlich maneuver

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as in insensate
lacking animate awareness or sensation even the canyon's insensible rocks seemed to mock the stranded climber's utter helplessness

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

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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 insensible Also invited, for insensible reasons, is Neville’s first wife, Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland), blond to Kay’s brunette, for easy identification. Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2025 The ‘real’ Camille, meanwhile, has become an insensible, comatose carcass, although no one seems to notice. Damon Wise, Deadline, 24 Jan. 2025 Foreman tumbled downward in a dizzy, slow-motion-like crash, full-weight, a helpless giant, insensible. Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone, 17 Jan. 2025 The ‘real’ Camille, meanwhile, has become an insensible, comatose carcass, although no one seems to notice. Damon Wise, Deadline, 24 Jan. 2025 Foreman tumbled downward in a dizzy, slow-motion-like crash, full-weight, a helpless giant, insensible. Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone, 17 Jan. 2025 Or lobbyists can sometimes intervene and gain insensible exemptions from bans. IEEE Spectrum, 10 Feb. 2024 But the Cylinder Sling by Building Block flirts with such attitude without becoming rude or insensible. Los Angeles Times, 14 Sep. 2022 The novel positions him as insensible to agendas, hopelessly subject to the whims of the altruistic and the cruel. Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2022
Recent Examples of Synonyms for insensible
Adjective
  • 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
  • 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
  • Turn your LinkedIn presence from invisible to influential.
    Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 19 May 2025
  • Baca, who has been leading these workshops since 2011, recalled a moment from one: Everett Cox, a Vietnam War veteran who had kept away from everything military for decades, responded to a prompt of action verbs by expertly stabbing and slashing with an invisible bayonet.
    Dina Litovsky, New York Times, 19 May 2025
Adjective
  • While a nonchalant approach might protect you from a heartbreak, there's no way to build real relationships without vulnerability and the risk of rejection, Robbins said.
    Suzanne Blake, MSNBC Newsweek, 14 May 2025
  • One video shows some of those on the boat maintaining a nonchalant attitude, with one man joking the vessel had hit an iceberg, Titanic-style.
    Jesse Kirsch, NBC news, 6 May 2025
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
Adjective
  • Climate change vandals spray-painted a Tesla car dealership in Manhattan on Tuesday to protest Elon Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but as police arrived, the activists could be seen cleaning off some of the vulgar writing.
    Michael Dorgan, FOXNews.com, 22 Apr. 2025
  • Two of the protesters are facing counts including obstructing a law enforcement officer and simple battery on a law enforcement officer, while a third has been charged with using vulgar language, according to Acworth police.
    Jessica Schladebeck, New York Daily News, 16 Apr. 2025
Adjective
  • Problematic to be sure, but also a very in-character move for an ignorant buffoon.
    Ben Rosenstock, Time, 6 May 2025
  • But here's a reminder for us: casual cruelty, performed by ignorant fascists.
    ArsTechnica, ArsTechnica, 5 May 2025
Adjective
  • If this switching happens quickly enough, any flickering should be imperceptible to the human eye.
    Paul Monckton, Forbes.com, 30 Apr. 2025
  • John Ebel, a seismologist at Boston University and historian of East Coast earthquakes, is skeptical that what’s going on in Summerville could be caused by imperceptible tremors; in his experience, earthquake lights are typically associated with major seismic events.
    Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 19 Feb. 2025
Adjective
  • Honestly, for movie nights or casual gaming on a massive screen, this one’s hard to top.
    Shubham Yewale, PC Magazine, 14 May 2025
  • Sun Sentinel Coming soon: Lucky Lou’s Raw Bar to replace Bru’s Room; Roka Hula bringing Polynesian fusion to Delray Sometime later this summer, the former Bru’s Room near the Deerfield Beach International Fishing Pier will turn into a casual oyster bar and sporty seafood shack.
    South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sun Sentinel, 14 May 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Insensible.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/insensible. Accessed 22 May. 2025.

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