inanimate

adjective

(ˌ)i-ˈna-nə-mət How to pronounce inanimate (audio)
Definition of inanimatenext
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

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example 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 Both cameras have extremely sticky tracking systems that focus on the eyes of people, wildlife, pets, and insects, as well as inanimate subjects like trains, planes, automobiles, and motorbikes. — Jim Fisher, PC Magazine, 13 May 2026 Its lifeworld, its temporal and spatial perspective, contrasts with the human, rendering our characters as distant, as inanimate, as the stelae and sculptures that surround them. — Ben Lerner, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026 Will the movie turn out to be a period piece set in 2006, with all the human and inanimate characters obsessed with the debut album by a 16-year-old country singer from Tennessee? — Chris Willman, Variety, 29 May 2026 Then, in European culture, Christianity appeared, a religion which made an astonishing discovery, namely, that the primary cause for everything—humans, animals, nature, fertility, the inanimate world, the universe, the cosmos—could be concentrated into one single point. — Merve Emre, New Yorker, 28 June 2026 See All Example Sentences for inanimate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for inanimate
  1. unconscious
  2. insensate
  3. unfeeling
  4. insentient
  5. lifeless
Adjective
  • The moped passenger, who police said was struck by the truck’s rear wheel, can be seen on the video splayed out unconscious on the street.
    — Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News, 29 June 2026
  • Officers responding to the incident found an unconscious man lying on the sidewalk suffering from at least one gunshot wound.
    — CBS News, CBS News, 29 June 2026
Definition of unconscious
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
Definition of insensate
Adjective
  • As Micah so nicely puts it, there’s a narrative magnetism to Pitman’s repo encounters, many of which play out as micro-dramas of people in crisis confronting an embodied messenger of the great, unfeeling, deeply unfair American financial system.
    — Austin Elias-de Jesus, New Yorker, 22 June 2026
  • Ditto Hugh Jackman’s unerring performance — perhaps his finest dramatic work yet — as a savage, unfeeling thug and unrepentant murderer and thief.
    — Randy Myers, Mercury News, 18 June 2026
Definition of unfeeling
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
  • Genes are insentient things and cannot be said to have any kind of purposeful selfish or unselfish behavior.
    — Quanta Magazine, Quanta Magazine, 14 Sep. 2017
Definition of insentient
Adjective
  • Signs of tachinid activity include lifeless caterpillars or thin, brown chrysalises, sometimes with silk threads indicating larval emergence.
    — Rita Perwich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 July 2026
  • There’s no sugarcoating how lifeless the offense looked this weekend.
    — Chris Kirschner, New York Times, 29 June 2026
Definition of lifeless

Browse Nearby Words

inanes
inanimate
inanimately
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Cite this Entry

“Inanimate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/inanimate. Accessed 7 Jul. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on inanimate

Nglish: Translation of inanimate for Spanish Speakers

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