inanimate
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
not living and never having been alive, like a rock or a chair.
lacking the qualities of living organisms; referring to objects that are not alive and do not possess consciousness.
Simple“Children sometimes talk to their toys as if they were not inanimate objects.”
In context“The philosopher argued that we often project human emotions onto inanimate things like the wind or the sea.”
- 02 C1 Advanced
used to describe words for things that are not people or animals.
denoting a class of nouns that refer to non-living things, as opposed to people, animals, or spirits.
Simple“In some languages, the word for 'stone' belongs to the inanimate category.”
In context“The researcher noted that the language distinguishes between animate and inanimate nouns through specific suffix changes in the plural form.”
UsageIn linguistics, this adjective describes a noun class or gender.
Synonymsnon livingAntonyms
“It is just part of the human condition to place emotional value on inanimate objects.”
“Guided by the idea from Korean folklore and shamanism that inanimate objects can become spirited beings called dokkaebi , she looked at the junk discarded in London with fresh eyes.”
Inherited from Middle English inanimat(e), from Late Latin inanimātus, from Latin in- + animātus (“animated”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). By surface analysis, in- + animate. The noun was derived by substantivization from the adjective, see -ate (noun-forming suffix).
Borrowed from Latin inanimātus, the perfect passive participle of inanimō (“to animate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from in- (“in, into”) + animō (“to animate”); by surface analysis, in- + animate.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.