insensibility

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of physical or emotional feeling

Nouns

1. (physical numbness) insensibility, insensibleness; impassibility, impassibleness, impassivity; inappetency, apathy, phlegm, dullness, hebetude, supineness, lukewarmness. See oblivion.

2. (emotional numbness) coldness, cold fit, cold blood, cold heart; frigidity, sangfroid; stoicism; imperturbability, inexcitability; nonchalance, unconcern, dry eyes; insouciance, indifference; rashness, callousness; heart of stone, marble, deadness; thickness of skin. See inactivity.

3. (state of insensibility) coma, trance, sleep, suspended animation; numbness, unfeeling; stupor, stupefaction, paralysis, palsy. Slang, la-la-land. See repose.

4. (cause of insensibility) anesthesia, anesthetic, analgesia, narcosis; ether, chloroform, nitrous oxide, opium; saddle-block or spinal [anesthesia]; refrigeration, cryotherapy; acupuncture, acupressure; painkiller, novocaine, xylocaine, etc.; stun gun.

5. insensate. Slang, gork.

Verbs

1. (become insensitive) black or pass out, faint, draw a blank; have a rhinocerous hide. Slang, nod out, snow out, zone out, flake out.

2. (make insensitive) desensitize, blunt, obtund, [be]numb, paralyze, drug, chloroform, deaden, hebetate, stun, stupefy, daze, knock out. Slang, zap.

3. show insensibility, not mind or care, not be affected by; have no desire for, not care a straw (see indifference); disregard (see neglect); set at naught; turn a deaf ear to.

4. inure, harden [the heart]; steel, caseharden, sear.

Adjectives

1. (physically insensitive) insensible, senseless, unconscious, insensate; numb[ed]; comatose; anesthetic, stupefied, chloroformed; dead to the world, dead[ened]; narcotic. Informal, out like a light, out cold, under.

2. (emotionally insensitive) insensitive, insensate; impassive, impassible; dispassionate; blind, deaf, or dead to; unsusceptible, insusceptible; unimpressionable, passionless, spiritless, heartless, soulless, hardhearted; unfeeling, indifferent, lukewarm, careless, regardless; inattentive, neglectful; callous, thick-skinned, pachydermatous, impervious; hard, hardened, inured, casehardened; steeled against; proof against; imperturbable, inexcitable, unfelt; unconcerned, nonchalant, insouciant, sans souci.

3. (lacking certain types of emotional feeling) unambitious; unaffected, unruffled, unimpressed, uninspired, unexcited, unmoved, unstirred, untouched, unshocked, unstruck; unblushing, shameless; unanimated, vegetative; apathetic, phlegmatic; dull, frigid; cold, cold-blooded, coldhearted; cold as marble or charity; flat, obtuse, inert, supine, languid, halfhearted.

Adverbs — insensibly, etc.; in cold blood; with dry eyes.

Quotations — Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by! (William Butler Yeats), A man who so much resembled a baked Alaska — sweet, warm and gungy on the outside, hard and cold within (Francis King).

Antonyms, see sensibility, feeling.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. apathy, unconsciousness, unresponsiveness; see indifference 1 .

III

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun Lack of emotion or interest: apathy, disinterest, impassivity, incuriosity, incuriousness, indifference, insensibleness, lassitude, lethargy, listlessness, phlegm, stolidity, stolidness, unconcern, uninterest, unresponsiveness. See FEELINGS.