different between dumb vs insensate

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

From Middle English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, ineffectual”), from Old English dumb (“silent, speechless, mute, unable to speak”), from Proto-West Germanic *dumb, from Proto-Germanic *dumbaz (“dull, dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?ewb?- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”).

The senses of stupid, unintellectual, and pointless, which are found regularly since the 19th century only, probably developed under the influence of German dumm and Dutch dom. Just like the English word, these originally meant "lacking the power of speech", but they developed the mentioned senses early on.

Adjective

dumb (comparative dumber, superlative dumbest)

1. (dated) Unable to speak; lacking power of speech (kept in "deaf, dumb, and blind").

   Synonyms: dumbstruck, mute, speechless, wordless

   • 1594, Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

     to unloose the very tongues even of dumb creatures

2. (dated) Silent; unaccompanied by words.
   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act II, sc. 4:

     Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak

     In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 23:

     O let my books be then the eloquence

     And dumb presagers of my speaking breast ...

   • 1881, John Campbell Shairp, Aspects of Poetry

     to pierce into the dumb past

3. (informal, derogatory, especially of a person) Extremely stupid.

   Synonyms: feeble-minded, idiotic, moronic, stupid; see also Thesaurus:stupid

4. (figuratively) Pointless, foolish, lacking intellectual content or value.

   Synonyms: banal, brainless, dopey, silly, stupid, ridiculous, vulgar

5. Lacking brightness or clearness, as a colour.
   • 1720, Daniel Defoe, The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton

     Her stern, which was painted of a dumb white or dun color.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English dumben, from Old English dumbian (more commonly in compound ?dumbian (“to become mute or dumb; keep silence; hold one’s peace”)), from Proto-Germanic *dumbijan?, *dumb?n? (“to be silent, become dumb”), from Proto-Indo-European *d?ewb?- (“to whisk, smoke, darken, obscure”). Cognate with German verdummen (“to become dumb”).

Verb

dumb (third-person singular simple present dumbs, present participle dumbing, simple past and past participle dumbed)

1. (dated) To silence.
   • 1607, William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act I, sc. 5:

     ... what I would have spoke

     Was beastly dumbed by him.
2. (transitive) To make stupid.
3. (transitive) To represent as stupid.
4. (transitive) To reduce the intellectual demands of.

Derived terms

Middle English

Alternative forms

• domb, doumb, dowmb, dom, domm, dum, doum, dowm, domp, doump

Etymology

From Old English dumb

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?dum(b)/, /?du?m(b)/

Adjective

dumb (plural and weak singular dumbe)

1. Lacking or failing to display the faculty of voice:
   1. Unspeaking; unable to speak or having muteness.
   2. (substantive) A mute; one who can't speak.
   3. Temporarily unable to speak due to strong emotions.
   4. Unwilling or reluctant to speak; not speaking.
2. Powerless, ineffectual (either inherently or due to events)
3. Unknowledgeable; having no understanding or sense.
4. (of animals) Unwilling or unable to make a noise; quiet or silent.
5. (rare) Unrevealing, useless; having no important messages or lessons.
6. (rare) Having nothing to keep one busy or engaged.
7. (rare, figuratively) Refusing to preach or evangelise.
8. (rare, figuratively) Refusing to be conceited or vainglorious.

Derived terms

• dombenesse
• dumben

Descendants

• English: dumb
• Scots: dumb

References

• “d?mb, d?umb, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-04-27.

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *dumb.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dumb/

Adjective

dumb

1. mute, dumb (unable to speak)
2. (substantive) a mute
   • c. 990, Wessex Gospels, Luke 11:14

Declension

Related terms

• dumbnes

Descendants

• Middle English: dumb
  • Scots: dumb
  • English: dumb

English

Etymology

From Latin ?ns?ns?tus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?s?n.s?t/

Adjective

insensate (comparative more insensate, superlative most insensate)

1. Having no sensation or consciousness; unconscious; inanimate.
   • 1816, Lord Byron, Diodati:

     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.

   • 1928, Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Moriturus":

     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.
   • 1818, Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy, ch. 13:

     [T]he sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh.

   • 1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times, ch. 13:

     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.

   • 1913, Joseph Conrad, Chance, ch. 6:

     [T]he romping girl teased her . . . and was always trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other.

   • 1918, Louis Joseph Vance, The False Faces, ch. 12:

     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.
   • 1847, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,ch. 36:

     I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate.

   • 1904, Frank Norris, A Man's Woman, ch. 6:

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

   • 1917, Frank L. Packard, The Adventures of Jimmie Dale, ch. 8:

     . . . 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. (medicine, physiology) Not responsive to sensory stimuli.
   • 1958 June, Edward B. Schlesinger, "Trigeminal Neuralgia," American Journal of Nursing, vol. 58, no. 6, p. 854:

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

   • 2004 Aug. 1, Jeff G. van Baal, "Surgical Treatment of the Infected Diabetic Foot," Clinical Infectious Diseases, vol. 39, p. S126:

     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.

   • 2005 Feb. 5, "Minerva," BMJ: British Medical Journal, vol. 330, no. 7486, p. 316:

     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.

Antonyms

• (having no sensation or consciousness): sentient

Translations

Noun

insensate (plural insensates)

1. One who is insensate.
   • 1873, Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes, ch. 22:

     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

insensate (third-person singular simple present insensates, present participle insensating, simple past and past participle insensated)

1. (rare) To render insensate; to deprive of sensation or consciousness.
   • 1915, James Oliver Curwood, God's Country And the Woman, ch. 24 (Google preview):

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

   • 2002, Shony A. Braun, My Heart Is a Violin, ?ISBN, p. 60 (Google preview):

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

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “insensate”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN

Anagrams

• antisense

Italian

Adjective

insensate f pl

1. feminine plural of insensato

Noun

insensate f pl

1. plural of insensata

Anagrams

• annessite

Latin

Adjective

?ns?ns?te

1. vocative masculine singular of ?ns?ns?tus