different between insensate vs eccentric

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

Alternative forms

• eccentrick (obsolete)
• excentric
• excentrick (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle French excentrique, from Medieval Latin excentricus, from Ancient Greek ????????? (ékkentros, “not having the earth as the center of an orbit”), from ?? (ek, “out”) + ??????? (kéntron, “point”). Equivalent to ex- +? -centric.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?k?s?nt??k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?k?s?nt??k/

Adjective

eccentric (comparative more eccentric, superlative most eccentric)

1. Not at or in the centre; away from the centre.
   • 2011, Michael Laver, Ernest Sergenti. Party Competition: An Agent-Based Model, page 125,

     Strikingly, we see that party births tend systematically to be at policy positions that are significantly more eccentric than those of surviving parties, whatever decision rule these parties use.

2. Not perfectly circular; elliptical.

   As of 2008, Margaret had the most eccentric orbit of any moon in the solar system, though Nereid's mean eccentricity is greater.

3. Having a different center; not concentric.
4. (of a person) Deviating from the norm; behaving unexpectedly or differently; unconventional and slightly strange.
   • 1801, Author not named, Fyfield (John), entry in Eccentric Biography; Or, Sketches of Remarkable Characters, Ancient and Modern, page 127,

     He was a man of a most eccentric turn of mind, and great singularity of conduct.

   • 1807, G. H. Wilson (editor), The Eccentric Mirror, Volume 3, page 17,

     Such is not the case with Mr. Martin Van Butchell, one of the most eccentric characters to be found in the British metropolis, and a gentleman of indisputable science and abilities, but whose strange humors and extraordinary habits, have rather tended to obscure than to display the talents he possessed.

   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture I:

     There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make the person exceptional and eccentric.

   • 1956, Arthur C. Clarke, The City and the Stars, 2012, unnumbered page,

     Khedron was the only other person in the city who could be called eccentric—and even his eccentricity had been planned by the designers of Diaspar.

5. (physiology, of a motion) Against or in the opposite direction of contraction of a muscle (e.g., such as results from flexion of the lower arm (bending of the elbow joint) by an external force while contracting the triceps and other elbow extensor muscles to control that movement; opening of the jaw while flexing the masseter).
6. Having different goals or motives.
   • a. 1626, Francis Bacon, 1867, Richard Whately (analysis and notes), James R. Boyd (editor), Essay XI: Wisdom for a Man's Self, Lord Bacon's Essays, page 171,

     […] for whatsoever affairs pass such a man's hands he crooketh them to his own ends, which must needs be often eccentric to those of his master or state: […]

Usage notes

• (physiology, of motion): Motions that are eccentric or the opposite (concentric) are classified as isotonic (“having equal tension”), the antonym of which is isometric (“retaining equal length”). See also Isometric exercise on Wikipedia.Wikipedia .

Synonyms

• (not at or in the centre): eccentrical, excentrical
• (not perfectly circular): eccentrical, excentrical
• (having a different centre): eccentrical, excentrical
• (deviating from the norm): eccentrical, excentrical, odd, abnormal; see also Thesaurus:eccentric
• (against the contraction of a muscle):
• (having different goals or motives): eccentrical, excentrical

Antonyms

• (against the contraction of a muscle): concentric

Derived terms

• eccentrically
• eccentric anomaly
• eccentric contraction
• eccentric flint
• eccentric hypertrophy

Related terms

• central
• centric
• eccentricity

Translations

Noun

eccentric (plural eccentrics)

1. One who does not behave like others.
   • 1989, Jeffrey Robinson, Rainier and Grace, page 26:

     A tiny, feisty woman who always spoke her mind, Charlotte was an eccentric in the wonderful way that some women from the last century were natural eccentrics.

   • 1998, Michael Gross, Life On The Edge, 2001, page ix,

     Eccentrics live longer, happier, and healthier lives than conformist normal citizens, according to the neuropsychologist David Weeks.

2. (slang) A kook; a person of bizarre habits or beliefs.
3. (geometry) A circle not having the same centre as another.
4. (engineering) A disk or wheel with its axis off centre, giving a reciprocating motion.

Synonyms

• (person who does not behave like others): misfit, nonconformist; see also Thesaurus:maverick
• (person of bizarre habits or beliefs): crank, odd duck, weirdo; see also Thesaurus:strange person

Translations

See also

• acentric