Definition of "insensate"

Since thus divided — equal must it beIf the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;It may be both — but one day end it mustIn the dark union of insensate dust.

1816, Lord Byron, Diodati

If I might beInsensate matterWith sensate meSitting within,Harking and prying,I might beginTo dicker with dying.

1928, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Moriturus

[T]he sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh.

1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], Rob Roy. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown

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.

1854, Charles Dickens, chapter 13, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […]

[T]he romping girl teased her . . and was always trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other.

1913, Joseph Conrad, “ch. 6”, in Chance

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.

1918, Louis Joseph Vance, “ch. 12”, in The False Faces

I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate.

1847, Anne Brontë, “ch. 36”, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

That insensate, bestial determination, iron-hearted, iron-strong, had beaten down opposition, had carried its point.

1904, Frank Norris, “ch. 6”, in A Man's Woman

[…] 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.

1917, Frank L. Packard, “ch. 8”, in The Adventures of Jimmie Dale

If the ophthalmic branch is cut the patient must be told about the hazards of having an insensate cornea.

1958 June, Edward B. Schlesinger, “Trigeminal Neuralgia”, in American Journal of Nursing, volume 58, number 6, page 854

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.

2004 Aug. 1, Jeff G. van Baal, “Surgical Treatment of the Infected Diabetic Foot”, in Clinical Infectious Diseases, volume 39, page S126

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.

2005 Feb. 5, “Minerva”, in BMJ: British Medical Journal, volume 330, number 7486, page . 316

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.

1873, Thomas Hardy, “chapter 22”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes

And this thought, blinding them to all else, insensating them to all emotions but that of vengeance, was thought of Josephine.

1915, James Oliver Curwood, “ch. 24”, in God's Country And the Woman‎

The train moved on again, keeping us prisoners in a stench-filled car, starving, suffocating, insensated.

2002, Shony A. Braun, My Heart Is a Violin‎, page 60