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Insensitive vs Disinterested - What's the difference?

insensitive | disinterested | Related terms |

Insensitive is a related term of disinterested.


As adjectives the difference between insensitive and disinterested

is that insensitive is not expressing normal physical feeling while disinterested is having no stake or interest in the outcome; free of bias, impartial.

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 .

    Related terms

    * insensitively * insensitivity

    Synonyms

    * unaffected

    Antonyms

    * sensitive

    disinterested

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having no stake or interest in the outcome; free of bias, impartial.
  • * 1791 , (James Boswell), Life of Samuel Johnson :
    • Sir, you have a right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right.
  • * 1919 , , :
    • With his disinterested passion for art, he had a real desire to call the attention of the wise to a talent which was in the highest degree original; [...]
  • *2011 , (Steven Pinker), The Better Angels of Our Nature , Penguin 2012, p. 220:
  • *:People are better off abjuring violence, if everyone else agrees to do so, and vesting authority in a disinterested third party.
  • * '>citation
  • Uninterested, lacking interest.
  • * 1684 , Contempl. State of Man I. x
    • How dis-interested are they in all Worldly matters, since they fling their Wealth and Riches into the Sea.
  • * 1936 , (Djuna Barnes), Nightwood , Faber & Faber 2007, p. 43:
    • Robin took to wandering again, to intermittent travel from which she came back hours, days later, disinterested .
  • * 1967 , Tommy Frazer, The Sun (Baltimore), "A 'Doctor' Of Karate", March 27
    • Those spotted are usually taught so slowly that they grow disinterested and quit.

    Usage notes

    *Leading authorities consider usage of this word with the meaning of uninterested acceptable,

    References