word | apathetic |
---|---|
definition | (1) Showing or feeling little or no emotion. (2) Having no interest. |
eg_sentence | His apathetic response to the victory bewildered his friends. |
explanation | Apathy, or lack of emotion, is central to Albert Camus's famous novel The Stranger, in which the main character's indifference toward almost everything, including his mother's death, results in his imprisonment. We feel little sympathy for him, and may even feel antipathy, or dislike. The American voter is often called apathetic; of all the industrial democracies, only in America does half the adult population fail to vote in major elections. As you can see, apathetic isn't the opposite of pathetic, even though the a- that it begins with means “not” or “without. |
IPA | ˌæpəˈθɛtɪk |
Tags: mwvb::unit:10, mwvb::unit:10:word, mwvb::word, mwvb::word-cloze, mwvb::word-reverse, obsidian_to_anki
Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.
Next card: Empathy sensations strong feel sympathy feeling ability emotions
Previous card: Pathos element sympathetic pity audience's pathetic life drama
Up to card list: Merriam-Webster Vocabulary Builder LITE (English)