Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Inanimate |
InanimateAdjective1. (linguistics) belonging to the class of nouns denoting nonliving things; "the word `car' is inanimate". 2. Not endowed with life; "the inorganic world is inanimate"; "inanimate objects"; "dead stones". 3. Appearing dead; not breathing or having no perceptible pulse; "an inanimate body"; "pulseless and dead". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "inanimate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1588. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Animism refers to the belief that personalized, supernatural beings (or souls) inhabit ordinary objects and govern their existence.Modern Neopagans often describe their belief system as animist. One example of this is the idea that the Goddess and God consist of everything that exists (although this is actually an example of animatism, rather than animism).
The term is also the name of a theory of religion, proposed by the anthropologist Sir E. B. Tylor in his 1871 book, Primitive Culture. Most anthropologists today consider the term "animism" useful for describing a set of specific beliefs, but reject Tylor's theories of "animism."
Tylor argued that non-Western societies relied on animism to explain why things happen. He further argued that animism is the earliest form of religion, and reveals that humans developed religions in order to explain things. At the time that Tylor wrote, this theory was politically radical because it made the claim that non-Western peoples (viz., non-Christian heathens) in fact do have religion. However, since the publication of Primitive Culture, Tylor's theories have come under criticism from three quarters. First, some have questioned whether the beliefs of diverse tribal peoples living in different parts of the world can be lumped together as one kind of religion. Second, some have questioned whether the basic function of religion really is to "explain" the universe (critics like Marrett and Durkheim argued that religious beliefs have emotional and social, rather than intellectual, functions). Finally, many now see Tylor's theories as ethnocentric. Not only was he imposing a contemporary and Western view of religion (that it explains the inexplicable) on non-Western cultures; he was also telling the story of a progression from religion (which provides poor explanations) to science (which provides good explanations) (see cultural evolution).
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Animism."
Synonyms: InanimateSynonyms: breathless (adj), dead (adj), nonliving (adj), pulseless (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: animate (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Death | Adjective: dead, lifeless; deceased, demised, departed, defunct, extinct; late, gone, no more; exanimate, inanimate; out of the world, taken off, released; departed this life. Verb: dead and gone; dead as a doornail, dead as a doorpost, dead as a mutton, dead as a herring, dead as nits; launched into eternity, gone to one's eternal reward, gone to meet one's maker, pushing up daisies, gathered to one's fathers, numbered with the dead. |
Inorganization | Noun: mineral world,mineral kingdom; unorganized matter, inorganic matter, brute matter, inanimate matter. |
Adjective: inorganic, inanimate, inorganized; lithoidal; azoic; mineral. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Inanimate |
| English words defined with "inanimate": Abiological, anthropomorphic, anthropomorphous ♦ breathless ♦ Clay cold ♦ deadness ♦ fomite ♦ humanlike, hurt ♦ neuter, nonconscious ♦ pathetic fallacy, Prosopop/ia, pulseless ♦ still life ♦ To be dead ♦ weakened. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "inanimate": Adhesins, Bacterial, Anti-Infective Agents, Local, Arachnid Vectors, Arthropod Vectors ♦ Disease Reservoirs ♦ Equipment Contamination ♦ Insect Vectors ♦ LOBCOCK ♦ photo-animation ♦ Random Allocation ♦ Spatial Behavior, stop-motion. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "inanimate": Phasmid. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | That's what enables him to pass through inanimate objects (Birds of Prey; writing credit: Adam Armus; Nora Kay Foster) But a pole is an inanimate object (Coup de torchon; writing credit: Jean Aurenche; Bertrand Tavernier) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | A gift, a faculty, if it had not departed, was suspended and inanimate within me. |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This rule of silence had had this effect that, in the whole convent, speech was withdrawn from human creatures and given to inanimate objects |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Because rhinoviruses can survive up to three hours outside the nasal passages on inanimate objects and skin, cleaning environmental surfaces with a virus-killing disinfectant might help prevent spread of infection. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Inanimate" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Inanimate" is used about 154 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 154 | 25,326 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "inanimate": inanimate matter ♦ inanimate object ♦ inanimate objects. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
inanimate | 3 |
inanimate object sex | 3 |
inanimate object | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "inanimate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Afrikaans | dood (dead, death, late, lifeless). (various references) | |
Albanian | i pajetë (dead, dead alive, lifeless, spiritless, vacuous), pa shprehje (fishy). (various references) | |
Arabic | فاقد الوعي (cold, lifeless, senseless, suspended, unconscious), فاقد الحيوية (spiritless), ساكن هامد (dormant, inhabitant, motionless, quiescent, serene, stationary, still), جماد, بليد (bovine, dim, doltish, dopey, dull, lethargic, light minded, lumpish, obtuse, passive, silly, sleepy, slow, slow moving, sluggish, stupid, thick-headed, torpid, unworkable). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | неодушевен (dead, insensate, insensible, insentient, unconscious), апатичен (apathetic, apathetical, languid, lethargic, listless, spiritless, torpid, vacant), безжизнен (breathless, dead, earthy, glassy, insensate, languid, lifeless, pithless, sapless, set, stone-dead, tuneless). (various references) | |
Chinese | 无生命 (lifeless). (various references) | |
Czech | neživý (lifeless). (various references) | |
Dutch | zielloos (lifeless), onbezield (lifeless), levenloos (lifeless), dood (dead, death, late, lifeless). (various references) | |
Farsi | غیرذیروح , انگیختن (Fire, Incite, Motive, Occasion, Stimulate, Urge), روح دادن (Act, Animate, Enliven, Spirit), بیجان (Exanimate, Inert). (various references) | |
Finnish | eloton (inert, lifeless, vacant). (various references) | |
French | inerte (inert), inanimé. (various references) | |
German | leblos (deserted, empty, inanimately, insensate, lifeless, lifelessly, unconscious), unbelebt (lifeless, quiet). (various references) | |
Greek | άψυχοσ (exanimate, insentient, lifeless, soulless), άψυχος. (various references) | |
Hebrew | דומם (dumb, immobile, in silence, inorganic, lifeless, quiet, silently, speechless, speechlessly, still). (various references) | |
Hungarian | élettelen (breathless, exanimate, glassy, inert, inorganic, lifeless). (various references) | |
Italian | inanimato (insensate, lifeless), senza vita (lifeless). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 非情 (callous, heartless, inanimate nature), 物象 (natural phenomenon, object, science of inanimate nature), 無生物 (inanimate object), 有る (to be inanimate, to have). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ひじょう (callous, emergency, extraordinary, heartless, inanimate nature, unusual), ぶっしょう (evidence, exhibit, natural phenomenon, object, science of inanimate nature, the Buddha nature), むせいぶつ (inanimate object). (various references) | |
Manx | neuannymagh, marroo (aground; deceased estate, assassinate, bag game; dead, bag; dead, butcher, deceased, defunct, departed, dispatch, dud, dull, dull of pain, exterminate, extinct; extermination, flat, flat mood, flat spot, glassy, glassy as look, kill, kill off, killed, killing, lifeless, liquidate, liquidation, mortified, muggy, murder, slaughter, slaughtered, slaughtering, slay, slaying, sleeping, stagnant), gyn annym (flat, flat mood, soulless, spiritless), anvio (defunct, extinct). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | inanimateay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | inanimado (hard-hearted, insensate, insentient, kill-time, lifeless, senseless, spiritless). (various references) | |
Romanian | inert (dull, inactive, indifferent, inert, inertly, lazy, nerveless, passive, sluggish), neînsufleţit (brute, lifeless, spiritless), monoton (bald, dead, ding-dong, drab, dull, flat, humdrum, monotonous, monotonously, same, singsong, slow, tame, uneventful). (various references) | |
Russian | неодушевленный (dead, insensate, lifeless). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | neživ, bez života (dead alive, insensate, lifeless, spiritless). (various references) | |
Spanish | inanimado (exanimate, lifeless). (various references) | |
Swedish | livlös (dead, fishy, in the doldrums, insensate, insentient, lifeless). (various references) | |
Thai | ซึ่งไม่มีชีวิต. (various references) | |
Turkish | sıkıcı (arid, bald, boring, burdensome, constringent, cut and dried, damnable, dead alive, disconcerting, ditch water, ditchwater, drab, dry, dryasdust, dull, dusty, gaunt, gloomy, grave, grotty, humdrum, insipid, irksome, oppressive, poky, ponderous, prose, prosy, slow, sluggish, soul-destroying, soulless, stodgy, stuffy, tedious, tiresome, trying, uncongenial, unexeciting, unpleasant, unreadable, unsensational, vapid, waste, watery, wearisome), ruhsuz (dead alive, dull, impassive, soulless, spiritless, stagnant, wooden), donuk (blear, blurred, clouded, colourless, dead, diaphanous, dim, dull, dullish, frosty, glassy, mat, Matt, opaque, toneless), cansız (apathetic, apathetical, bloodless, colorless, dead, dead pan, dying, exanimate, feckless, flagging, heartless, lackadaisical, lackluster, lacklustre, languid, lifeless, listless, poky, sapless, singsong, sluggish, soulless, spiritless, stagnant, toneless, torpid, weak, wishy washy, wishywashy), ölü (carcass, casualty, corpse, dead, deceased, defunct, exanimate, late, lifeless, stiff, stone-dead, the dead). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | неживий (abiotic, dead, inorganic, insensate, insentient, lifeless), бездушний (brute, callous, chill, hardened, hard-hearted, hollow-hearted, ossified, soulless). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | vô sinh; không có sinh khí; vô tri vô giác nhạt nhẽo, thiếu hoạt động (inactive), buồn tẻ (dead-alive, drab, dryasdust, dull, dully, heavy, humdrum, jogtrot, ponderous, tame, toneless, waste). (various references) | |
Welsh | anfywiol (inactive), anfyw. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "inanimate": inanimately, inanimateness, inanimatenesses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Inanimate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: inamimate, inanimante, inanmate, inatimate, innominata, Ipanima. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "inanimate" (pronounced i'na"numut) |
| 6 | -a" n u m u t | animate. |
| 4 | -u m u t | approximate, consummate, illegitimate, estimate, guesstimate, intimate, legitimate, proximate, ultimate. |
| 3 | -m u t | climate, comet, gamut, helmet, hermit, limit, microclimate, plummet, summit, vomit. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-i-i-m-n-n-t" | |
-1 letter: amanitin, maintain. | |
-2 letters: amentia, animate, antiman, intimae, mannite. | |
-3 letters: anemia, etamin, inmate, innate, intima, intime, intine, taenia, tamein, tinman, tinmen. | |
-4 letters: amain, ament, amine, amnia, anent, anima, anime, animi, antae, atman, entia, imine, inane, manat, mania, manna, manta, matin, meant, menta, minae, tenia, tinea. | |
-5 letters: amen, amia, amie, amin, anna, anta, ante, anti, atma, emit. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-i-i-m-n-n-t" | |
+1 letter: antianemia, maintained, maintainer. | |
+2 letters: deaminating, deamination, examination, inanimately, maintainers, reanimating, reanimation. | |
+3 letters: alimentation, antimagnetic, deaminations, delaminating, delamination, emancipating, emancipation, emargination, examinations, interlaminar, maintainable, melanization, meningiomata, reanimations. | |
+4 letters: alimentations, animadverting, antihistamine, antimechanist, antisubmarine, cabinetmaking, contaminative, delaminations, emancipations, emarginations, examinational, germanization, inanimateness, intermarginal, magnanimities, magnetization, mainstreaming, manifestation, mechanization, melanizations, reexamination, terminational, unimaginative. | |
+5 letters: anathematizing, antidefamation, antihistamines, antimechanists, cabinetmakings, dehumanization, denominational, germanizations, interanimation, magnetizations, manifestations, mechanizations, mineralization, reexaminations, reimplantation, sensationalism. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Fiction 7. Quotations: Non-fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions 10. Expressions: Internet 11. Translations: Modern 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
