1
as in ruthless
having or showing a lack of sympathy or tender feelings
an insensitive remark about his deceased wife that was incredibly rude
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in numb
lacking in sensation or feeling
fingers rendered insensitive by the cold
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of insensitive
My grown kids still act like kids — selfish and insensitive.
—
Ticked Off,
The Orlando Sentinel,
29 May 2026
My parents acknowledged that selling without a collective goodbye had been insensitive.
—
Chiara Barzini,
Vogue,
9 May 2026
Among the benefits of employing a more diverse work staff, especially in leadership roles, include media content that is more culturally inclusive and aware, and less likely to be insensitive, offensive, or unfair to minority groups.
—
Encyclopedia Britannica,
7 May 2026
The next three lines modify Vim’s search behavior, making all-lowercase searches case-insensitive but keeping mixed-case searches case-sensitive and highlighting all the search results at once.
—
Lee Hutchinson,
ArsTechnica,
6 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for insensitive
Ticked Off,
The Orlando Sentinel,
29 May 2026
My parents acknowledged that selling without a collective goodbye had been insensitive.
—
Chiara Barzini,
Vogue,
9 May 2026
Among the benefits of employing a more diverse work staff, especially in leadership roles, include media content that is more culturally inclusive and aware, and less likely to be insensitive, offensive, or unfair to minority groups.
—
Encyclopedia Britannica,
7 May 2026
The next three lines modify Vim’s search behavior, making all-lowercase searches case-insensitive but keeping mixed-case searches case-sensitive and highlighting all the search results at once.
—
Lee Hutchinson,
ArsTechnica,
6 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for insensitive
Recent Examples of Synonyms for insensitive
Adjective
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Canadian quartet Truck Violence have been sloshing together these subgenres in a ruthless manner for several years now, and their sophomore album and debut for the Flenser aims for even higher drops between those peaks and valleys.
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There was relative peace for 11 years, until a second civil war erupted in 1983, when leaders in Khartoum imposed sharia (Islamic) law and accelerated repression of the southern Christian rebels, which ultimately allowed a ruthless military officer, Omar al-Bashir, to come to power in 1989.
Adjective
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The bullet hit close to his spine, leaving his legs numb.
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Feeling numb or unable to experience emotions.
Adjective
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The poem that precedes it, the Iliad, is a cruel and beautiful work, the ultimate story of war; the Odyssey has its warlike passages, but its central energies seem almost commonplace beside the merciless fury of Achilles.
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Humility is the posture; the standard is merciless.
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.
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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.
Adjective
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Oscar Wilde, for example, reposes beneath a hulking deity whose iconoclastic castration, back in 1961, did little to restrain pilgrims seeking to smear red lips across his stony physique.
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Instead of looking like a sleek urban loft, the room can quickly start to feel cold, stony, and impersonal.
Adjective
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According to the arrest report, the victim had fallen asleep while seated at the dining room table.
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At least one was an infant, asleep in the back seat.
Adjective
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To its left-wing voter base, Labour seemed callous.
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Watching the movie and Marcel’s fragile belief in a world so callous is to feel a surge of possibility for humanity.
Adjective
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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.
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Ditto Hugh Jackman’s unerring performance — perhaps his finest dramatic work yet — as a savage, unfeeling thug and unrepentant murderer and thief.
Cite this Entry
“Insensitive.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/insensitive. Accessed 29 Jun. 2026.
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