different between insensate vs benumbed

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

English

Verb

benumbed

1. simple past tense and past participle of benumb

Adjective

benumbed (comparative more benumbed, superlative most benumbed)

1. Lacking sensation; numb.
2. Lacking emotion or interest; dulled.

Translations