insensate

adj

1. Having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.

   “Since thus divided — equal must it be If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea; It may be both — but one day end it must In the dark union of insensate dust.”

   “If I might be Insensate matter With sensate me Sitting within, Harking and prying, I might begin To dicker with dying.”

2. Senseless; foolish; irrational; thoughtless.

   “[…]the sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh;—[…]”

   “Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands at her ears. . . . Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth.”

   “[…]the romping girl teased her . . . and was always trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other.”

   “But in his insensate passion for revenge upon one who had all but murdered him, he had forgotten all else but the moment's specious opportunity.”

3. Unfeeling, heartless, cruel, insensitive.

   “I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate.”

   “That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted, iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point.”

   “[…]the most cold-blooded, callous murders and robberies, the work, on the face of it, of a well-organized band of thugs, brutal, insensate, little better than fiends.”

4. Not responsive to sensory stimuli; unfeeling.

   “If the ophthalmic branch is cut the patient must be told about the hazards of having an insensate cornea.”

   “The presence of severe pain with a deep plantar foot infection in a diabetic patient is often the first alarming symptom, especially in a patient with a previously insensate foot.”

   “The innocuous trauma of high pressure jets and bubble massage to the insensate breast and back areas had caused the bruising seen in the picture.”

noun

1. One who is insensate.

   “Here, at any rate, hostility did not assume that slow and sickening form. It was a cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest: determination; not an insensate standing in the way.”

verb

1. (rare)To render insensate; to deprive of sensation or consciousness.

   “And this thought, blinding them to all else, insensating them to all emotions but that of vengeance, was thought of Josephine.”

   “The train moved on again, keeping us prisoners in a stench-filled car, starving, suffocating, insensated.”