unsympathetic[adjective]Synonyms: hard, callous, cold, cruel, harsh, heartless, insensitive, unfeeling, unkind, unmoved
Antonyms: sympathetic
Contrasted words: appealing, congenial, likable, pleasant, pleasing
Related Words: dislikable,
unlikable,
displeasing,
unpleasant,
unpleasing,
cold,
cool,
frigid,
disinterested,
halfhearted,
indifferent,
lukewarm
English Thesaurus: unkind, mean, nasty, hurtful, spiteful, ... [TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary ▲
un‧sym‧pa‧thet‧ic /ˌʌnsɪmpəˈθetɪk/
adjective [
Word Family: noun:
sympathy,
sympathizer;
verb:
sympathize;
adverb:
sympathetically;
adjective:
sympathetic ≠
unsympathetic]
1. not kind or helpful to someone who is having problems
2. not willing to support an idea, aim etc
unsympathetic to/towards a government that’s unsympathetic to public opinion3. an unsympathetic person in a book or play is unpleasant and difficult to like:
an unsympathetic character—unsympathetically /-kli/
adverb [TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲
unkind treating people in a way that makes them unhappy or upset.
Unkind sounds rather formal. In everyday English, people usually say
mean or
nasty:
Children can be very unkind to each other. a rather unkind remarkmean especially spoken unkind:
Don’t be mean to your sister! It was a mean thing to do.nasty deliberately unkind, and seeming to enjoy making people unhappy:
He said some really nasty things before he left. a nasty manhurtful unkind – used about remarks and actions:
Joe couldn’t forget the hurtful things she had said. Couples sometimes do hurtful things to each other.spiteful deliberately unkind to someone because you are jealous of them or angry with them:
The other women were spiteful to her, and gave her the hardest work to do. She watched them with spiteful glee (=pleasure).malicious deliberately behaving in a way that is likely to upset, hurt, or cause problems for someone:
Someone had been spreading malicious rumours about him. There was a malicious smile on her face. an act of malicious vandalism The accusations are malicious.unsympathetic not seeming to care about someone’s problems, and not trying to help them or make them feel better:
Her parents were very unsympathetic, and told her that she deserved to fail her exam. an unsympathetic bosshard-hearted very unsympathetic and not caring at all about other people’s feelings:
Was he hard-hearted enough to leave his son in jail overnight? a hard-hearted businessmanhorrible especially spoken very unkind:
Why is Jack always so horrible to me?cruel very unkind and deliberately making people feel unhappy or making them suffer physically:
Her father was very cruel to her. a selfish, cruel womanwicked /ˈwɪkəd, ˈwɪkɪd/ extremely unkind and behaving in a very immoral way:
a wicked thing to do the wicked stepmother in Cinderellasadistic extremely unkind and enjoying making other people suffer:
Their father was a sadistic bully who beat them regularly. He took a certain sadistic pleasure in his job.thoughtless/inconsiderate not thinking about the effects of your actions on other people:
It was inconsiderate of him not to say that he would be late. a thoughtless disregard for other people’s feelingstactless someone who is tactless carelessly says or does things that are likely to upset someone, without realizing what they are doing:
How could you be so tactless? a tactless questioninsensitive behaving in a way that is likely to upset someone, or not seeming to care about someone’s feelings.
Insensitive is rather a formal word:
The article is insensitive to the family and friends of the victim. He later admitted that some of his remarks were ‘insensitive’. [TahlilGaran] English Thesaurus ▲