INSENSIBILITY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Devoid of passion or feeling; hardheartedness

Synonyms:

callosity; callousness; hardness; insensibility; unfeelingness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("insensibility" is a kind of...):

insensitiveness; insensitivity (the inability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "insensibility"):

dullness (lack of sensibility)

Derivation:

insensible (unaware of or indifferent to)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A lack of sensibility

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("insensibility" is a kind of...):

unconsciousness (a state lacking normal awareness of the self or environment)

Antonym:

sensibility (mental responsiveness and awareness)

Derivation:

insensible (unresponsive to stimulation)

insensible (incapable of physical sensation)

Credits

Context examples:

A medical inspection, qualified according to the methods employed, as physical examination, radiologic examination, diagnostic imaging examination, etc., performed under conditions of patient's complete or partial local or general insensibility to pain with or without the loss of consciousness, induced by an anesthetic agent or by non-pharmacological anesthesia technique.

(Examination Under Anesthesia, NCI Thesaurus)

His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was to Catherine the most surprising insensibility.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

“Sir Thomas, who had done so much for her and her brothers, and who was gone perhaps never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it was a shameful insensibility.”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and solicitously addressing her upon every occasion.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I could not but observe, however, that her fall was very carefully executed, and that she was fortunate enough, in spite of her insensibility, to arrange her drapery and attitude into a graceful and classical design.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon, from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather than a great aunt, might have warned her, for man only can be aware of the insensibility of man towards a new gown.