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Abrasive vs Insensitive - What's the difference?

abrasive | insensitive |

As adjectives the difference between abrasive and insensitive

is that abrasive is producing abrasion; rough enough to wear away the outer surface while insensitive is not expressing normal physical feeling.

As a noun abrasive

is a substance or material such as sandpaper, pumice, or emery, used for cleaning, smoothing, or polishing .

abrasive

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Producing abrasion; rough enough to wear away the outer surface.
  • Being rough and coarse in manner or disposition; causing irritation.
  • An abrasive person can grate on one's sensibilities.
    Despite her proper upbringing, we found her manners to be terribly abrasive .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A substance or material such as sandpaper, pumice, or emery, used for cleaning, smoothing, or polishing.
  • (geology) Rock fragments, sand grains, mineral particles, used by water, wind, and ice to abrade a land surface.
  • References

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    insensitive

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not expressing normal physical feeling
  • * 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula
  • It is something like the way dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact.
  • Not expressing normal emotional feelings; cold; tactless; undiplomatic
  • * 1895, Grant Allen, The British Barbarians
  • Somehow, when Bertram Ingledew let it once be felt he did not wish to be questioned on any particular point, even women managed to restrain their curiosity: and he would have been either a very bold or a very insensitive man who would have ventured to continue questioning him any further.
  • * 1994, Jann Arden, "Insensitive" (song)
  • Oh I really should have known by the time you drove me home, / By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual good-byes, / By the chill in your embrace and the expression on your face, / That told me you might have some advice to give / On how to be insensitive .

    Synonyms

    * unaffected

    Antonyms

    * sensitive