Dictionary

irresponsive en · ADJ

Etymology

From ir- + responsive.

Meanings

1. That does not respond to stimuli; unresponsive.
   • I had seen him once in that brown coat; I touched its sleeve, but it was limp and irresponsive to that faint call of memory. 1941, Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Penguin 1971 edition, page 31:
   • At dawn some weeks back it had creaked across the plain, and at a point where the scrub curved, the husband had stopped the horse while the woman parted the tilt and waved goodbye to the bent, irresponsive old man and his dog. 1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 27:
   • The church bells, faintly and fitfully heard, clanged their invitation to an irresponsive town; […] 1902, Robert Marshall Grade, The Haunted Major:

Forms

Deriveds

irresponsiveness

Translations (1)

bg неотзивчив (unresponsive)