Meanings
comparative more insatiate · superlative most insatiate
- archaicliteraryThat is not satiated; insatiable.
I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge.
1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter III, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, pages 49–505 more examples
Light vanitie inſatiate cormorant, / Conſuming meanes ſoone praies vpon it selfe: […]
1595 December 9 (first known performance), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Simmes for Androw Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]Satan exalted ſat, by merit raiſ'd / To that bad eminence; and from deſpair / Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aſpires / Beyond thus high, inſatiate to pursue / Vain Warr with Heav'n, and by ſucceſs untaught / His proud imaginations thus diſplaid.
1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 5–10A boy of eighteen years mid myrtle-boughs / Lying love-languid on a morn of May, / Watched half-asleep his goats insatiate browse / Thin shoots of thyme and lentisk, by the spray / Of biting sea-winds bitter made and grey: […]
1878, John Addington Symonds, “Le Jeune Homme Caressant sa Chimère. For an Intaglio.”, in Many Moods: A Volume of Verse, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 36that mode of manning the fleet, a mode now fallen into a sort of abeyance but never formally renounced, it was not practicable to give up in those years. Its abrogation would have crippled the indispensable fleet, […] a fleet the more insatiate in demand for men, because then multiplying its ships of all grades against contingencies present and to come of the convulsed Continent.
1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter V.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC, page 240Then again the heaving bosom of the Mediterranean, clothes strewn along the shore, running naked into the sea while wind-exported Andalusian odors spice the insatiate night!
1980, Peter De Vries, chapter 5, in Consenting Adults, or The Duchess Will Be Furious, London: Penguin, →ISBN, page 69Antonyms: satiable, satisfiable
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveThat is not satiated; insatiable.
More synonyms by meaning
adjectiveimpossible to satisfy
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*seh₂-“to satiate, satisfy”
- Latininsatiātus
- Middle Englishinsaciate
- Englishinsatiate
From Late Middle English insaciate, insaciat, insacyate (“insatiable”), from Latin insatiātus, from in- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + satiātus (“satisfied; having been satisfied”) (perfect passive participle of satiō (“to satisfy”), from satis (“enough; filled; plenty”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂- (“to satiate, satisfy”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).
More words from Middle English, Latin, Proto-Indo-European
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
insatiate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insatiate
“insatiate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insatiate. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “insatiate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insatiate.
Source: insatiate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.