INANIMATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does inanimate mean? 

• INANIMATE (adjective)
  The adjective INANIMATE has 3 senses:

1. belonging to the class of nouns denoting nonliving things

2. not endowed with life

3. appearing dead; not breathing or having no perceptible pulse

  Familiarity information: INANIMATE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INANIMATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Belonging to the class of nouns denoting nonliving things

Context example:

the word 'car' is inanimate

Domain category:

linguistics (the scientific study of language)

Antonym:

animate (belonging to the class of nouns that denote living beings)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not endowed with life

Synonyms:

inanimate; non-living; nonliving

Context example:

inanimate objects

Similar:

nonconscious (relating to the lack of consciousness of inanimate things)

Attribute:

aliveness; animateness; liveness (the property of being animated; having animal life as distinguished from plant life)

Antonym:

animate (endowed with animal life as distinguished from plant life)

Derivation:

inanimateness (not having life)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Appearing dead; not breathing or having no perceptible pulse

Synonyms:

breathless; inanimate; pulseless

Context example:

pulseless and dead

Similar:

dead (no longer having or seeming to have or expecting to have life)

Derivation:

inanimateness (not having life)

 Context examples 

When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Even though they are inanimate objects, sand dunes can ‘communicate’ with each other, researchers have found.

(Sand dunes can ‘communicate’ with each other, University of Cambridge)

The natural sciences dealing with inanimate matter or with energy, as physics, chemistry, astronomy.

(Physical Sciences, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

I am aware, more aware than Crawford can be, that the man who means to make you love him (you having due notice of his intentions) must have very uphill work, for there are all your early attachments and habits in battle array; and before he can get your heart for his own use he has to unfasten it from all the holds upon things animate and inanimate, which so many years' growth have confirmed, and which are considerably tightened for the moment by the very idea of separation.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She had none of Fanny's delicacy of taste, of mind, of feeling; she saw Nature, inanimate Nature, with little observation; her attention was all for men and women, her talents for the light and lively.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

But again when I reflected that they had spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)