different between listless vs inanimate

English

Etymology

From Middle English lystles, equivalent to list (“desire”) +? -less. Compare Dutch lusteloos (“lethargic, listless”). Doublet of lustless.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l?stl?s/

Adjective

listless (comparative more listless, superlative most listless)

1. Lacking energy, enthusiasm, or liveliness.
   • 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, ch. 18:

     I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless.

   • 1861, Charlotte M. Yonge, The Stokesley Secret, ch. 6:

     What an entirely different set of beings were those Stokesley children in lesson-time. . . . Poor, listless, stolid, deplorable logs, with bowed backs and crossed ankles, pipy voices and heavy eyes!

   • 1901, William Somerset Maugham, The Hero, ch. 21:

     The scene with Mrs. Wallace had broken his spirit, and he was listless now, indifferent to what happened.

   • 2005 Nov. 29, Aryn Baker, "John Hardy: Bali Guy," Time:

     “Listless, inattentive, distracted,” he recited. “A daydreamer. Tries his best, but is too slow.”

Derived terms

• listlessly
• listlessness

Translations

Anagrams

• slitless

English

Etymology

in- +? animate

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?æn?m?t/

Adjective

inanimate (comparative more inanimate, superlative most inanimate)

1. Lacking the quality or ability of motion; as an inanimate object.
2. Not being, and never having been alive, especially not like humans and animals.
3. (grammar) Not animate.

Synonyms

• (unable to move): immobile, motionless
• (not alive): non-animate, lifeless, insentient, insensate

Antonyms

• (grammar): animate

Translations

Noun

inanimate (plural inanimates)

1. (rare) Something that is not alive.

Verb

inanimate (third-person singular simple present inanimates, present participle inanimating, simple past and past participle inanimated)

1. (obsolete) To animate.
   • 1621, John Donne, An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary

     For there's a kind of world remaining still, Though shee which did inanimate and fill

Anagrams

• Mantineia, amanitine, maintaine

Italian

Adjective

inanimate f pl

1. feminine plural of inanimato

Latin

Adjective

inanim?te

1. vocative masculine singular of inanim?tus