unreflective

adjective

un·​re·​flec·​tive ˌən-ri-ˈflek-tiv How to pronounce unreflective (audio)
: not reflective: such as
a
: unthinking, heedless
an unreflective person
an unreflective impulse
unreflective dogma
b
: not reflecting something
TV made some moves toward reflecting reality. Very small moves; very unreflective of reality.Dorothy Uhnak
c
: not producing a reflection
an unreflective surface

Examples of unreflective in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Impulses are unreflective urges or a strong desire to act without thinking. Eric Wood, Forbes.com, 7 Apr. 2025 These people are concerned that the superficial—attention to looks—will obscure and distract us from what is truly significant, turning us into unserious and unreflective people incapable of making the best of what’s left. Judith Viorst, Allure, 1 Apr. 2025 The frozen official arrangements for international order are increasingly unreflective of the global distribution of material power. Gideon Rose, Foreign Affairs, 25 Apr. 2022 The chapter is, on the whole, as brusquely unreflective as its title suggests. Mark O’Connell, The New York Review of Books, 24 Nov. 2022 The point of the book isn’t to solve the case or bring Kenny to justice, but to systematically reveal the paralyzing sinkhole of injustice that dissolves all hope and all strategies of resistance into a flat, unreflective goo. Noah Berlatsky, Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2023 Cage turns its unreflective dramatic form and unchallenging narrative conventions into a kind of living nightmare, which bypasses the movie’s mediocre ideas and trivial plot and raises it—if only a few fleeting moments at a time—into the realm of the extraordinary. Richard Brod, The New Yorker, 17 July 2021 The composition of state legislatures is unreflective of the overall population, according to research from New American Leaders, a group that works to involve immigrants and first-generation Americans in politics. Eleanor Lutz, New York Times, 5 Nov. 2022 The one problem the team saw was that the reflective layer didn't make solid contact with the unreflective one when it was unrolled, which limited the amount of heat that could transfer between the two. John Timmer, Ars Technica, 13 Sep. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1641, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of unreflective was in 1641

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Cite this Entry

“Unreflective.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unreflective. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.

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