inhuman

comparative more inhuman · superlative most inhuman · alternative inhumane

1. Of or pertaining to inhumanity and the indifferently cruel, sadistic or barbaric behavior it brings.

   It was replaced by a New Euston, "bold in design and layout and in keeping with a new railway era". Betjeman was unmoved, describing it tersely as "no masterpiece" and noting that its lack of platform seating made it an "inhuman structure" which seemed to ignore passengers.

   2023 February 8, Greg Morse, “Crossing the border... by Sleeper”, in RAIL, number 976, page 45

   Synonyms: demonic, inhumane, truculent, barbarous, bowelless, brutal, compassionless, cruel

2. Transcending or different than what is human.

   For Eugene O’Neill the sea is usually the constant symbol of these eternal realities, the inhuman powers of nature against which men and women must measure their puny strength.

   1921, The Independent 1921-12-03: Volume 106, Issue 3794, Open Court Publishing Company, page 147

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   When he was out among men, seeking his own ends, and “making good! his colliery workings, he had an almost uncanny shrewdness, hardness, and a straight sharp punch. It was as if his very passivity and prostitution to the Magna Mater gave him insight into material business affairs, and lent him a certain remarkable inhuman force.

   1832, David Herbert Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, McFarland, page 209

   The organism that embraces this theme in its devious ramifications is the great business house of Dombey and Son, symptom and epitome of selfish money power and warping tyranny. And the special symbol that spells wreckage, devastation, and the unleashed violence of the inhuman force that thus came to possess mankind is that new monster of the mid-nineteenth-century world, heartless embodiment of mechanized energy, the railroad —the same railroad so often pictured in the Punch of those days or in the maledictions of Ruskin as a glaring, headlit engine of destruction, gouging open the green English landscape or the outposts of London, riding down the lives of men, and bringing the smoke and soot of industrialism in its wake: the dragon of a world grown heartless and of a future that promised to become more heartless still.

   1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Houghton Mifflin Company, page 11

   However, Christophe, having less penetration than Francoise, said to himself that love is a blind, inhuman force, throwing those together who cannot bear with each other. Love joins those together who are like each other. And what love inspires is very small compared with what it destroys. If it be happy it dissolves the will.

   1913, Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe: Journey's End: Love and Friendship, the Burrning Bush, the New Dawn, Henry Holt Company, page 151

   He sees their actions conditioned and to gome extent controlled by the influences of majestic inhuman powers, the genii of Eastern tales, huge, cloud-girt spirits of oppressive solemnity. In reality most people wear motley all day long and the fairy powers are leprechauns, tricksy irresponsible sprites, willing enough to make merry with those who can laugh with them; but players of all Puck’s tricks on “wisest aunts telling saddest tales".

   1915, George A. Birmingham, Gossamer, Methuen Company, Limited, pages 284-285

   “Well, so you are,’ Martha answered. ‘It struck me once or twice. You don’t ook like him, but you’ve got the same voice ind walk and you appear to have the same ‘ort of inhuman strength. Look at this.”

   1920, The Saturday Evening Post, G. Graham, page 147

   Synonyms: preternatural, superhuman