impassionate

English

WOTD – 8 February 2015

Alternative forms

• empassionate (obsolete)

Etymology

From im- +‎ passionate.

Pronunciation

• (adjective) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpæʃənət/

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• (verb) IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpæʃəneɪt/

Adjective

impassionate (comparative more impassionate, superlative most impassionate)

1. filled with passion; impassioned

   Synonyms: impassioned, passionate

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 46, page 309:

     The Briton Prince was ſore empaſſionate, / And woxe inclined much vnto her part, [...]

   • 1900, George P. Hott, Christ, the Teacher, U. B. Publishing House, page 81:

     Young ministers, deeply impressed and longing to pour out the burning, impassionate zeal of their own souls, are apt to abuse the use of this figure.
2. Lacking passion; dispassionate

   Synonym: dispassionate

   • 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, “Patriarchal”, in Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, book the first (Poverty), page 105:

     Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, Patriarch was the word for him.

   • 2005, Alexander T. Newport, The Vomit Factory (Life Is Fake: Death Is Good)‎^[1], Lulu.com, →ISBN, Chapter 15: Letter to Veronica, pages 96-97:

     From a scholarly standpoint, the book was poorly written: Scholarly works demand keen attention to logical consistency while maintaining an impersonal, impassionate voice; and while the Course certainly lack humour, it is anything but impassionate, and far from being logically consistent.

Translations

dispassionate — see dispassionate

impassioned — see impassioned

Verb

impassionate (third-person singular simple present impassionates, present participle impassionating, simple past and past participle impassionated)

1. (transitive) to affect powerfully; to arouse the passions of
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     our Saviour Christ was one while deeply impassionated with Sorrow, another while very strongly carried away with Žeal and Anger