Numb vs Insensitive - What's the difference?
numb | insensitive |
Without the power of sensation and motion or feeling; insensible.
Not able to react, surprised, shocked.
Causing numbness.
* Shakespeare
To cause to become numb.
Not expressing normal physical feeling
* 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula
Not expressing normal emotional feelings; cold; tactless; undiplomatic
* 1895, Grant Allen, The British Barbarians
* 1994, Jann Arden, "Insensitive" (song)
As adjectives the difference between numb and insensitive
is that numb is without the power of sensation and motion or feeling; insensible while insensitive is not expressing normal physical feeling.As a verb numb
is to cause to become numb.numb
English
Adjective
(er)- All thin and naked to the numb cold night.
Antonyms
* sensible, sensitiveDerived terms
* benumb * numbly * numbness * numbnutsVerb
(en verb)- The dentist gave me novocaine to numb my tooth before drilling, thank goodness.
Synonyms
* benumbinsensitive
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- 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.
- 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.
- 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 .