disinterest

1. uncountableAn absence of interest (attention or curiosity).First known use 19th c.

   She eyed him over her martini with cool disinterest.

   3 more examples

   […] there was no neighbourliness, worth the word, between what the postmistress called ‘our old people’ and ‘that new set’. Polite calls paid by the former on the latter were as politely returned; but at that it ended. The gulf of mutual disinterest was unbridged.

   1948, Andrew Caldecott, chapter 2, in Fires Burn Blue

   The root of the matter, as a letter and an editorial in our November issue pointed out, is disinterest in the railway, whatever it does.

   1960 January, G. Freeman Allen, “"Condor"—British Railways' fastest freight train”, in Trains Illustrated, page 46

   Salem politely admired the rifles, but his disinterest was hard to mask.

   2012, Dave Eggers, chapter 26, in A Hologram for the King, San Francisco: McSweeney’s Books, page 231

   Synonyms: apathy, indifference, uninterest

2. uncountableThe absence of interest (bias or stake).First known use 17th c.

   He maintained a posture of scrupulous disinterest in Balkan affairs […]

   2012, Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, Penguin, published 2013, page 125

   Synonyms: impartiality

3. obsoleteuncountableWhat is contrary to interest or advantage.First known use 17th–19th c.

   1 more example

   1676, Joseph Glanvill, Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion, London: John Baker and Henry Mortlock, Essay 2 “Of Scepticism and Certainty,” p. 45, Now the progress of Knowledg being stopt by extreme Confidence on the one hand, and Diffidence on the other; I think that both are necessary, though perhaps one is more seasonable: For to believe that every thing is certain, is as great a disinterest to Science, as to conceive that nothing is so:

   Synonyms: disadvantage

present singular third person disinterests · participle present disinteresting · participle past disinterested · past disinterested

1. transitiveTo render disinterested.

   The Moscow Bolsheviks may disinterest themselves in the fate of Ukrainian or White Russian territories under Polish rule; but nationalist States in the Ukraine or White Russia could never evince such indifference.

   1935, Lewis Namier, “German Arms and Aims”, in In the Margin of History, London: Macmillan, published 1939

comparative more disinterest · superlative most disinterest

1. obsoleteFree of personal bias.

   1 more example

   […] if they [weaker people] can be rul’d by an understanding without, when they have none within, they shall receive this advantage, that their owne passions shall not transport their mindes, and the divisions and weaknesse of their owne sense and notices shall not make them uncertaine, and indeterminate; and the measures they shall walke by, shall be disinterest and even, and dispassionate, and full of observation.

   1653, Jeremy Taylor, Eniautos: A Course of Sermons for all the Sundaies of the Year, London: Richard Royston, Sermon 23, Part 2, p. 300

   Synonyms: disinterested