unreflecting

comparative more unreflecting · superlative most unreflecting

1. Not giving reflection or thought to one's actions, words, conclusions, etc.; (of an action, statement, conclusion, etc.) done without reflection or thought. (of a person)

   If there are people so unreflecting or so cruel, as to make a jest of me, what is left for me to do but to make a jest of myself, them, and every thing?

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 32, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 326

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   Now what Discourse can be more suited to the Principles of these young Cubs of the Leviathan, than not to punish credulous and unreflecting People for being cheated and abused?

   1671, Samuel Parker, chapter 7, in A Defence and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Politie, London: J. Martyn, page 569

   When culprit reason truant plays, / And wanders forth in fancy’s maze, / Thy random shafts may please a-while, / And raise the unreflecting smile, / But soon as absent sense returns, / Our cheek with indignation burns,

   1770, Thomas Chatterton, The Auction, London: George Kearsly, page 22

   […] there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearance indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity.

   1899, Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”, in Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, published 1902, page 142

   How ungenerously in later life we disclaim the virtuous moods of our youth, living in retrospect long, summer days of unreflecting dissipation, Dresden figures of pastoral gaiety!

   1945, Evelyn Waugh, chapter 3, in Brideshead Revisited […], London: Chapman & Hall, published 1952, →OCLC, book 1 (Et in Arcadia Ego), page 56

   Synonyms: impulsive

2. That does not reflect light or sound.

   The steel hat on the coffin lay blackened and unreflecting under the winter sun […]

   1943, Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, London: Heinemann, published 1960, Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 99

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   [A] mirror may have picturesque beauty; but it is only from it's reflections. In an unreflecting state, it is insipid.

   1792, William Gilpin, “On Picturesque Beauty”, in Three Essays, London: R. Blamire, page 24

   A star-ship—as the mirrors told— / Put forth its great and lonely light / To the unreflecting Ocean, Night.

   1913, James Elroy Flecker, “A Ship, an Isle, a Sickle Moon”, in J. C. Squire, editor, The Collected Poems of James Elroy Flecker, New York: Doubleday, Page, published 1916, page 175