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Insensitive vs Compassionate - What's the difference?

insensitive | compassionate |

As adjectives the difference between insensitive and compassionate

is that insensitive is not expressing normal physical feeling while compassionate is having, feeling or showing compassion; sympathetic.

As a verb compassionate is

to feel compassion for; to pity, feel sorry for.

insensitive

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Not expressing normal physical feeling
  • * 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula
    • It is something like the way dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact.
  • Not expressing normal emotional feelings; cold; tactless; undiplomatic
  • * 1895, Grant Allen, The British Barbarians
    • Somehow, when Bertram Ingledew let it once be felt he did not wish to be questioned on any particular point, even women managed to restrain their curiosity: and he would have been either a very bold or a very insensitive man who would have ventured to continue questioning him any further.
  • * 1994, Jann Arden, "Insensitive" (song)
    • Oh I really should have known by the time you drove me home, / By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual good-byes, / By the chill in your embrace and the expression on your face, / That told me you might have some advice to give / On how to be insensitive .

    Related terms

    * insensitively * insensitivity

    Synonyms

    * unaffected

    Antonyms

    * sensitive

    compassionate

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having, feeling or showing compassion; sympathetic.
  • * South
    • There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate .
  • Of a leave, given to someone because of a domestic emergency.
    • compassionate leave
  • (obsolete) Inviting pity; pitiable.
    • (Shakespeare)

    Synonyms

    * ruthful

    Verb

    (compassionat)
  • (archaic) To feel compassion for; to pity, feel sorry for.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1903, author=William Godwin, title=Caleb Williams, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=And yet I could not help bitterly compassionating the honest fellow, brought to the gallows, as he was, strictly speaking, by the machinations of that devil incarnate, Mr. Tyrrel. }}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1895, author=J. Sheridan Le Fanu, title=The Evil Guest, chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=The good Mrs. Mervyn accompanied these words with looks so sly, and emphasis so significant, that Rhoda was fain to look down, to hide her blushes; and compassionating the confusion she herself had caused, the kind old lady led her to the chamber which was henceforward, so long as she consented to remain, to be her own apartment. }}
  • * 1749 , Henry Fielding, Tom Jones , Folio Society 1973, p. 50:
    • The justice which Mr Allworthy had executed on Partridge at first met with universal approbation; but no sooner had he felt its consequences, than his neighbours began to relent, and to compassionate his case [...].