| / English Dictionary |
INDIFFERENT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Showing no care or concern in attitude or action
Example:
indifferent to her plea
Classified under:
Similar:
unconcerned (lacking in interest or care or feeling)
Derivation:
indifference (unbiased impartial unconcern)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(usually followed by 'to') unwilling or refusing to pay heed
Example:
deaf to her warnings
Synonyms:
deaf; indifferent
Classified under:
Similar:
heedless; unheeding (marked by or paying little heed or attention)
Sense 3
Meaning:
(often followed by 'to') lacking importance; not mattering one way or the other
Example:
what others think is altogether indifferent to him
Synonyms:
immaterial; indifferent
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unimportant (not important)
Derivation:
indifference (unbiased impartial unconcern)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Marked by a lack of interest
Example:
the universe is neither hostile nor friendly; it is simply indifferent
Synonyms:
apathetic; indifferent
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
uninterested (not having or showing interest)
Derivation:
indifference (the trait of lacking enthusiasm for or interest in things generally)
Sense 5
Meaning:
Neither too great nor too little
Example:
a couple of indifferent hills to climb
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
moderate (being within reasonable or average limits; not excessive or extreme)
Sense 6
Meaning:
Being neither good nor bad
Example:
a tolerable working knowledge of French
Synonyms:
indifferent; so-so
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
ordinary (not exceptional in any way especially in quality or ability or size or degree)
Sense 7
Meaning:
Characterized by a lack of partiality
Example:
an unbiased account of her family problems
Synonyms:
indifferent; unbiased; unbiassed
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
impartial (showing lack of favoritism)
Derivation:
indifference (unbiased impartial unconcern)
Sense 8
Meaning:
Marked by no especial liking or dislike or preference for one thing over another
Example:
was indifferent to their acceptance or rejection of her invitation
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
impartial (showing lack of favoritism)
Derivation:
indifference (the trait of remaining calm and seeming not to care; a casual lack of concern)
indifference (unbiased impartial unconcern)
Sense 9
Meaning:
Having only a limited ability to react chemically; chemically inactive
Example:
an indifferent chemical in a reaction
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unreactive ((chemistry) not reacting chemically)
Domain category:
chemical science; chemistry (the science of matter; the branch of the natural sciences dealing with the composition of substances and their properties and reactions)
Sense 10
Meaning:
Fairly poor to not very good
Example:
has indifferent qualifications for the job
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
inferior (of or characteristic of low rank or importance)
Context examples:
Wolf Larsen had sat about, listening to my repairing the windlass and talking with Maud and me upon indifferent subjects.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
And I even attempted, more than once, for my own private satisfaction, to employ his methods in their solution, though with indifferent success.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In a vote, on the 4 September 2008 the EP asked the Council to be more demanding on exposure levels this is proof that the subject leaves no one indifferent.
(Health threats caused by mobile phone radiation, EUROPARL TV)
Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Is the patient apathetic or indifferent?
(NPI - Lost Interest in the World Around Him/Her, NCI Thesaurus)
I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
She reproached her with having more affection for Miss Tilney, though she had known her so little a while, than for her best and oldest friends, with being grown cold and indifferent, in short, towards herself.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Lestrade and I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a definite end.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
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