as in unconscious
lacking animate awareness or sensation
"pathetic fallacy" is the literary term for the ascription of human feelings or motives to inanimate natural elements
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Examples Sentences
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.
Recent Examples of inanimate
Evident before us and present in all matter—animate and inanimate—is the atom.
—
Pravir Malik, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2024
If pressed, some argue the indignation over the defacement itself betrays how little our culture values the planet when compared to inanimate works of canvas and pigment.
—Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 17 Sep. 2024
Visually, black against white and white against black animate the dramatic central figure, distinguishing her from the inanimate corpses that lift her up, like a morbid human pedestal.
—Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2024
The former is the mode of being that categorizes all inanimate and non-conscious objects.
—Theodore McDarrah, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for inanimate 
Pravir Malik, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2024
If pressed, some argue the indignation over the defacement itself betrays how little our culture values the planet when compared to inanimate works of canvas and pigment.
—Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 17 Sep. 2024
Visually, black against white and white against black animate the dramatic central figure, distinguishing her from the inanimate corpses that lift her up, like a morbid human pedestal.
—Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2024
The former is the mode of being that categorizes all inanimate and non-conscious objects.
—Theodore McDarrah, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2024
See all Example Sentences for inanimate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for inanimate
Adjective
-
To take it a step further, Mars will station retrograde in Leo on Dec. 6 — shaking up your 12th house of closure, healing and unconscious patterns — which is also an invitation to reconsider how your residual energies in your subconscious influence your love life.Valerie Mesa, People.com, 7 Dec. 2024
-
Her steering wheel, bent and broken, could indicate that Silkwood braced her arms as the impact occurred -- inconsistent with someone being unconscious at the time.Aaron Katersky, ABC News, 5 Dec. 2024
Adjective
-
The brain, like other internal organs, is insensate, its lack of sensory receptors attested by videos of virtuoso violinists who play on unfazed as neurosurgeons go to work inside their skulls.Matthew Ponsford, WIRED, 19 Sep. 2024
-
But states have used midazolam alone — and at much higher doses — in executions since 2013, claiming the drug will render people insensate to pain before the administration of other lethal injection drugs.Lauren Gill, ProPublica, 29 Apr. 2023
Adjective
-
The author renders the four-year-old Margaret’s inner life with sensitive complexity, depicting an alert child logic that defies adults’ view of her as slow and unfeeling.The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 12 June 2024
-
That’s because for decades, reptiles have been characterized as cold, unfeeling, and even primitive creatures.Lily Carey, Discover Magazine, 8 Apr. 2024
Adjective
-
This is partly because the loss of insentient machinery, no matter how expensive, is easier to stomach than the death of an aircrew.Lauren Kahn, Foreign Affairs, 6 June 2023
-
But its shortcomings are essentially those of the novel: its single-track didacticism; its neat pitting of romantic idealists against macho, insentient normies; and the fact that a decisive plot twist can be spotted a mile off.Houman Barekat, New York Times, 29 Mar. 2023
Adjective
-
Seven hours later, John found his daughter's lifeless body in a small basement room.Doc Louallen, ABC News, 13 Dec. 2024
-
Police responding to the scene of a grisly Harlem murder more than a quarter century ago found the lifeless body of a young woman.Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 7 Dec. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near inanimate
Cite this Entry
“Inanimate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inanimate. Accessed 17 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share