Meanings
plural insensibilities
- The property of being insensible.
What a deal of grief, care, and other harmful excitement does a healthy dulness and cheerful insensibility avoid!
1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 16, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC1 more example
When I recovered I found myself lying on a clean, comfortable bed, while there bent over me a physician and an elderly woman. I learned that I had been found early in the morning in the rear of the house in a state of insensibility, and that the owner of the place […] had caused me to be brought in and placed on the bed.
1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 27Synonyms: insensibleness
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe property of being insensible.
More synonyms by meaning
noundevoid of passion or feeling; hardheartedness
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Late Latininsensibilitas
- Old Frenchinsensibilité
- Englishinsensibility
From Old French insensibilité, from Late Latin insensibilitas.
More words from Old French, Late Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian безчувственост
- безчувственост (bezčuvstvenost)the property of being insensible
Latin indolentia
- indolentiathe property of being insensible
Portuguese insensibilidade
- insensibilidadethe property of being insensible
Cite this entry
insensibility. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insensibility
“insensibility.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insensibility. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “insensibility,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/insensibility.
Source: insensibility on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.