toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

apathy
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Nobody can say why the thirty-eight did not lift the phone while Miss Genovese was being attacked, since they cannot say themselves. It can be assumed, however, that their apathy was indeed one of the big-city variety. It is almost a matter of psychological survival, if one is surrounded and pressed by millions of people, to prevent them from constantly impinging on you, and the only way to do this is to ignore them as often as possible.   (source)
    apathy = lack of interest
  • God alone knew at what her glazed and smoky eyes were staring in such brute apathy.   (source)
  • though some in the stands were offended or apathetic, many were touched by the humility of the team's condition and reached into their pockets for coins.   (source)
    apathetic = without interest
  • The proles, normally apathetic about the war, were being lashed into one of their periodical frenzies of patriotism.   (source)
    apathetic = uninterested and unenthusiastic
  • ...they are quite apathetic and listless;   (source)
  • ...already growing apathetic and dazed in the presence of the cumulative distress,   (source)
    apathetic = uninterested
  • A reluctant elevator-boy went for a box full of straw and some milk, to which he added on his own initiative a tin of large, hard dog-biscuits — one of which decomposed apathetically in the saucer of milk all afternoon.   (source)
    apathetically = without emotion or interest
  • between curiosity and apathy   (source)
    apathy = lack of interest
  • Rocky pushes the bottle toward him apathetically.   (source)
    apathetically = with a lack of enthusiasm
  • He waited apathetically, and the roof dripped behind him.   (source)
    apathetically = without interest or enthusiasm
  • we were sitting around the table in a contented, Sunday-afternoon apathy,   (source)
    apathy = lack of enthusiasm
  • His manner was too restless, his embraces too apathetic, his tone without real tenderness.   (source)
    apathetic = without interest or enthusiasm
  • As he looked apathetically about him, his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the ruins of the fire from him,   (source)
  • the last to go, of course, was the apathetic Rabensteiner   (source)
  • she ... listened apathetically to the music,   (source)
  • She had sunk into a dreary apathy and would not be roused.   (source)
    apathy = lack of interest and enthusiasm
  • Mr. Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and entrances into his room were not felt to be of great importance.   (source)
    apathetic = without interest or enthusiasm
  • ...he shares Mary's apathetic and listless look:   (source)
    apathetic = lacking interest or enthusiasm
  • ...pursuing my movements with apathetic eyes.   (source)
    apathetic = uninterested
  • I confess that the apathy of religious people on this subject, their want of perception of wrongs that filled me with horror, have engendered in me more scepticism than any other thing.   (source)
    apathy = lack of interest
  • I told my father that his "Ship 'em Abroad" program didn't sound too democratic to me, that perhaps included in the freedoms in this country is the freedom to be apathetic.†   (source)
  • Fear and apathy had become the new norm in what had once been a close-knit community.†   (source)
  • You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma.†   (source)
  • No wonder the camerlegno despised apathy.†   (source)
  • We had to overcome obstacles like poverty and apathy and violence in our community.†   (source)
  • We stare at one another, keeping our faces blank, apathetic.†   (source)
  • The Nielsens are politely curious about me, and I do my best to answer their questions without sounding either desperate or apathetic.†   (source)
  • ...but now the apathy was gone.†   (source)
  • Dart's trips to the Marionette House did little to lift his apathy.†   (source)
  • The Bikura stood and wandered toward the cave entrance, apparently apathetic and indifferent once again.†   (source)
  • He was depressed, she said, "by the attitude of the Eastern men, whom he found singularly apathetic, utterly incredulous that any association of Western businessmen would give art a free hand in the manner he set forth.†   (source)
  • Today she senses a profound apathy at the school.†   (source)
  • I thought about it for a while, decided there was nothing excessively odd in this, nothing to worry about, no reason to believe she was sinking into apathy and despair.†   (source)
  • The kings and queens looked desperate, or lazy, or simply apathetic.†   (source)
  • Pointed cowboy boots in the ribs, fear and betrayal, parental apathy, isolation, and Nick's final telling words: "You can never leave me.†   (source)
  • He seemed to be almost in a state of apathy.†   (source)
  • the chasm of apathy in which we have fallen†   (source)
  • Despite the cool, exciting air of the July evening, he seemed apathetic and torpid.†   (source)
  • But he just didn't get Hassan's apathy.†   (source)
  • Often she was tempted just to walk into a saloon where there was a girl or two she could might have talked to, but instead she had given way to apathy, spending whole days sitting on the edge of her sleeping loft, doing nothing.†   (source)
  • Where there had once been a light in his eyes when he spoke about Eleanor, there was now only blankness; where once there was love, now there seemed to be only apathy.†   (source)
  • Right now I'm worried about Leigh, whose eyes are wide with emotion--a strange mix of hate, love, and apathy.†   (source)
  • This is laziness, or just apathy.†   (source)
  • I backed out of two duels more from apathy than cowardice and truly wished to be murdered.†   (source)
  • As a result of such apathy, the countryside had maintained more than a modicum of autonomy and freedom.†   (source)
  • Seivarden must have been just as cold, but she walked steadily as I pulled her along, step after apathetic step, feet dragging through the mossy snow, staring down, not complaining or even speaking at all.†   (source)
  • I have written mostly about people whose lives came and went on tides of whim, apathy and cruelty.†   (source)
  • Do you expect he should behave like a stoic philosopher, lost in apathy?†   (source)
  • His clear brown eyes were heavily lashed, and many young women had discovered just one heartbeat too late that his slightly drooping eyelids were not mirrors of boyish seductiveness but hardened apathy.†   (source)
  • The magus had been prepared for apathy but not for ignorance.†   (source)
  • Infected by a disease we could call apathy.†   (source)
  • and the empty white face staring at the universe in stagnant apathy would be the limit placed on her effort.†   (source)
  • Gay—"You hear it to describe everything that is stupid, apathetic.†   (source)
  • To be totally honest, his apathetic response kind of hurt my pride.†   (source)
  • Harriet tried to rouse Joe from his apathy, and urged him to look at Niagara.†   (source)
  • Voter Apathy: Distance Reduces Turnout†   (source)
  • Though he tried to make the announcement dramatic, Regis found himself facing nine apathetic and confused men.†   (source)
  • Grandpaw turned to Mum and said softly, "Take it, Mimi," and slumped back into gentle apathy.†   (source)
  • My bewilderment increased when, as the wolves swung up a slope and disappeared over the next crest, I jumped up to follow and the two bucks who had been so apathetic in the presence of the wolves leaped to their feet, staring at me in wild-eyed astonishment.†   (source)
  • She had gazed out the window at the wintry Warsaw desolation, bomb-shattered buildings and rubble heaps shrouded (there was no other word) by the sulphurous soot-blackened snow—a landscape which had once brought tears of sorrow but now only evoked a sickish apathy, so much a dingy part did it seem of the day-to-day dreariness and misery of a city ransacked, fearful, hungry, dying.†   (source)
  • And die he did: of self-induced apathy.†   (source)
  • Lord God, Lord Jesus, melt away my coldness and apathy of heart, descend and fill my emptiness of heart.†   (source)
  • JEAN and the WAITRESS, standing, and BERENGER, still apathetically seated, together form another group.†   (source)
  • Today in his apathy John stared at them, not seeing; he began to dust them with the exaggerated care of the profoundly preoccupied.†   (source)
  • And as a result, the attitude of the public toward the political profession had too often been characterized by apathy, indifference, disrespect and even amusement.†   (source)
  • During this time, in spite of the hard work and her hatred of the natives, all her apathy and discontent had been pushed into the background.†   (source)
  • Her expression was apathetic.   (source)
    apathetic = without interest or enthusiasm
  • We flipped through our joint memories apathetically, like switching TV channels without stopping to watch anything in particular.   (source)
  • At the beginning they met with much stupidity and apathy.   (source)
    apathy = lack of interest and enthusiasm
  • I was apathetic, and I tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries,   (source)
    apathetic = without interest or enthusiasm
  • A few apathetic faces of judges alone could be dimly discerned.   (source)
  • Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned his head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.
    "How'd it happen?" he asked apathetically.   (source)
    apathetically = without much concern (enthusiasm)
  • It left him, collapsed and breathing heavily, to an apathy so deep and prolonged that Lily almost feared the passers-by would think it the result of a seizure, and stop to offer their aid.   (source)
    apathy = lack of interest and energy
  • but he was apathetic and dilatory.   (source)
    apathetic = without interest or enthusiasm
  • read the Scriptures but was apathetic.   (source)
  • When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.   (source)
  • I didn't understand why he seemed so apathetic, but Menshikov looked angry enough for both of them.†   (source)
  • There were perhaps six townies in the back of the room, juic-ing and playing Watch Me apathetically.†   (source)
  • He gestured to the hippocampi, who were bonking their heads apathetically against the glass.†   (source)
  • That's why they have a mother," the inebriated and apathetic husband answered.†   (source)
  • But he felt apathetic about that too, and he didn't even have the faintest idea how to begin planning a counter-strategy.†   (source)
  • None of us can afford to be apathetic.†   (source)
  • The only sounds were hushed ones, the bloated gurgle of the stream, the respirating hum of the tall grass and shrubs behind him, the apathetic moaning of the dumb, translucent waves.†   (source)
  • Tad asked apathetically.†   (source)
  • Under the punishment inflicted by the Council his mercurial spirit had fallen low and he had become the apathetic wretch the sight of whom had so much shocked Bigwig.†   (source)
  • Until then, he had lain in his corner completely apathetic (not even acknowledging Tomas when he felt his leg), but when he heard the door open and saw Tereza come in, he raised his head and looked at her.†   (source)
  • People whined about taxes and conscription, as they always have; but there was an emptiness beneath the apathetic passion play of politics.†   (source)
  • Whether she grows apathetic and silent gradually, allowing you to make another choice besides this Jared, or… well, the Seekers are very good.†   (source)
  • Melanie urged me on, chanting encouragements when I slowed, thinking of Jared and Jamie when I turned apathetic.†   (source)
  • In the daytime, when she had finished preparing Dick's cool drinks, which were all that he took, she sat idly by the bed and sank into her usual apathetic state.†   (source)
  • [The noise of the rhinoceros and its trumpeting are now far away; the people are still staring after the animal, all except for BERENGER who is still apathetically seated.†   (source)
  • Darkness feeds on apathy …. and conviction is our most potent antidote.†   (source)
  • Man's apathy was the fertile ground in which the dark spirits tended their seeds.†   (source)
  • But soon the atmosphere of leaden apathy reigning over the compound began to affect them too.†   (source)
  • Odd," Jane said, apathy creeping back into her voice.†   (source)
  • My mother, sensing my apathy toward reading, had bought me the Mitch Albom book Fab Five.†   (source)
  • He looked at Ender with an expression that bespoke only apathy.†   (source)
  • I projected apathy about her feelings, but I wanted nothing more than to make her proud.†   (source)
  • Sunk in apathy, all I could do was work occasionally on the orchestration of my concertino.†   (source)
  • Jesus, God reminded him, had saved them all …. saved them from their own apathy.†   (source)
  • Sandström spent Tuesday in a state approaching apathy.†   (source)
  • I woke from my apathy just at the moment when two men came up to my father.†   (source)
  • The apathy was even tinged by a certain relief.†   (source)
  • I recognized the apathy at once.†   (source)
  • When you look up, you sometimes wonder if at, the centre of a solar storm, if in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity, there isn't another one like you also looking up, also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy.†   (source)
  • In the Bronx, the idea of life's impermanence underlined everything for kids my age—it drove some of us to a paralyzing apathy, stopped us from even thinking too far into the future.†   (source)
  • In a world of apathy, cynicism, and technological deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls like this man just had, were the church's only hope.†   (source)
  • Above all, I hope that this book can provide young people with a way to identify with success as a possibility, and a reason to believe that a story that begins with struggle, apathy, and the pain of loss can still have a happy ending.†   (source)
  • The apathy had evaporated.†   (source)
  • A sudden apathy sapped him.†   (source)
  • Apathy is dead.†   (source)
  • Apathy is death.†   (source)
  • The pain and anger had been replaced with a kind of apathy, rooted in the numbing realization that she'd never really known him at all.†   (source)
  • Then a kind of fatalistic apathy had settled in as certain emotional circuits quietly shut themselves down.†   (source)
  • Their expressions ranged from blank apathy to the relieved look of cheats who had believed that the game could end no other way and were making no effort to contest it or regret it-to the petulant blindness of Lawson, who refused to be conscious of anything-to the peculiar intensity of Jim, whose face suggested a secret smile.†   (source)
  • Then he saw the colony, which had experienced a bad letdown after the loss in one night of all they had built, an apathy he had not been able to lift— he saw this same colony begin to smile and joke and work hard simply from being exposed to music and dancing.†   (source)
  • Later, when he saw she had lapsed back into that terrible apathy, he appealed again: "Mary, please come to the farm with me.†   (source)
  • She went back to the house, for the first time in many months jerked clean out of her apathy, for the first time in months seeing the ground she walked over, and feeling the pressure of the sun against the back of her bare neck, the sharp hot stones pressing up under her soles.†   (source)
  • CORA—(with apathetic obedience) Sure.†   (source)
  • David returned his gaze apathetically.†   (source)
  • Hurstwood seemed more apathetic than ever.†   (source)
  • Jude dreaded her dull apathetic silences almost more than her paroxysms.†   (source)
  • She had been apathetic, given to broodings and a growing tendency toward morbidness.†   (source)
  • All these strange individuals stared apathetically as the train slowly passed.†   (source)
  • Carley huddled down into a state of apathetic misery.†   (source)
  • When her husband was rude to her she was apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried.†   (source)
  • Eustacia's manner had become of late almost apathetic.†   (source)
  • He waited patiently, apathetically, till the violence of her grief had worn itself out, and her rush of weeping had lessened to a catching gasp at intervals.†   (source)
  • While they uncovered the sheaves he stood apathetic beside his portable repository of force, round whose hot blackness the morning air quivered.†   (source)
  • XVIII Although the Divers were honestly apathetic to organized fashion, they were nevertheless too acute to abandon its contemporaneous rhythm and beat—Dick's parties were all concerned with excitement, and a chance breath of fresh night air was the more precious for being experienced in the intervals of the excitement.†   (source)
  • The old man, with an unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.†   (source)
  • But look you, just in the degree that a man had elevation of mind and refinement enough to be able to value this idea, was he repelled by the obvious aspect of the individuals composing the mass which he was to worship; and he could only evade that repulsion by making a conventional abstraction of mankind that had little actual or historical relation to the race; which to his eyes was divided into blind tyrants on the one hand and apathetic degraded slaves on the other.†   (source)
  • But Lidia Ivanovna's help was none the less real; she gave Alexey Alexandrovitch moral support in the consciousness of her love and respect for him, and still more, as it was soothing to her to believe, in that she almost turned him to Christianity—that is, from an indifferent and apathetic believer she turned him into an ardent and steadfast adherent of the new interpretation of Christian doctrine, which had been gaining ground of late in Petersburg.†   (source)
  • 'What is that apathetic being doing?' she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face.†   (source)
  • The quiet tone in which the woman pronounced these words might have led a superficial observer to think that she was entirely apathetic; but there was a calm, settled depth of anguish in her large, dark eye, that spoke of something far otherwise.†   (source)
  • When he had again regained his van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull off his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.†   (source)
  • ...we now existed in an apathy which was almost peace,†   (source)
  • Love can't change to apathy in a minute.†   (source)
  • But soon, even this rage passed into apathy.†   (source)
  • She must do something to drag him from his apathy—but she could not ask about Mother.†   (source)
  • Rarefied air had different effects on people; Conway, for instance, derived from it a combination of mental clarity and physical apathy that was not unpleasant.†   (source)
  • She was greatly struck by the apathy of his voice when, on her asking how he was feeling, he replied that he was in a bad way, he did not need a doctor, and all he wished was to be taken to the hospital, so as to comply with the regulations.†   (source)
  • Beneath the film of apathy, the events of yesterday ruffled the surface only rarely, like the tardy infrequent wreckage of a ship long sunken.†   (source)
  • For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule.†   (source)
  • Thus, while it is true that all who were parted came ultimately to this state, we must add that all did not attain it simultaneously; moreover, once this utter apathy had fallen on them, there were still flashes of lucidity, broken lights of memory that rekindled in the exiles a younger, keener sensibility.†   (source)
  • She was clutched by a bewildered apathy, an unhappiness that she could not understand, an unhappiness that went deeper than anything she had ever known.†   (source)
  • The apathy which had clutched them immediately after the war had completely disappeared and they were too busy building their own fortunes to help her build hers.†   (source)
  • Their convict uniforms were dirty and foul with sweat, shackles clanked between their ankles when they moved tiredly, and there was an air of apathy and despair about them.†   (source)
  • He saw her shake out of the cold apathy.†   (source)
  • ...the elder lady accepted her own apathy, while the younger resented hers.†   (source)
  • And as if by a lightning stroke she sprang from her dull apathy into exquisite torture.†   (source)
  • He accepted Frink with vast apathy; he grunted, "Poor boob!"†   (source)
  • The campaign had so far been characterized by what the newspapers termed "apathy."†   (source)
  • Meals with the patients were a chore he approached with apathy.†   (source)
  • Certainly this news excited people intensely, whatever their previous apathy.†   (source)
  • She stirred suddenly, broke from her apathy, and clung to Gerty in a fresh burst of fear.†   (source)
  • Brogard had opened the door, and listened, with his usual surly apathy, to the young man's request.†   (source)
  • It was apathy with Hurstwood, resulting from his inability to see his way out.†   (source)
  • From Nicole flowed a vast tragic apathy.†   (source)
  • She sank into a kind of furious apathy, a state of inert anger against fate.†   (source)
  • The stirring scene awakened even Munro from his apathy.†   (source)
  • Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensation of indifference and apathy.†   (source)
  • Away! away! shake off your apathy, John; now is the time of need.†   (source)
  • Subsiding from it, he did not sink into his former intellectual apathy.†   (source)
  • This apathy, peculiar to the Marais, presented a contrast with the vast surrounding uproar.†   (source)
  • the writing of occasional articles in one of the reforming weeklies that were trying to shake the country out of its apathy.†   (source)
  • And what is the cause of the enervation and apathy that arise when the rules of life are not abrogated from time to time?†   (source)
  • I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed to excite his attention.†   (source)
  • Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy.†   (source)
  • But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation--the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy.†   (source)
  • Looked at superficially, he appeared young, wild, silent, locked in his primeval apathy, just a healthy savage; but looked at more attentively, he appeared matured, even old, a strange, sad, brooding figure, with a burden on his shoulders.†   (source)
  • Fielding thought with hostility, "I knew these women would make trouble," and Mrs. Moore thought, "This man, having missed the train, tries to blame us"; but her thoughts were feeble; since her faintness in the cave she was sunk in apathy and cynicism.†   (source)
  • Wetting his hair first--a sure sign of apathy--he followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were a statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds.†   (source)
  • And as they sang, the nondescript and indifferent street audience gazed, held by the peculiarity of such an unimportant group publicly raising its voice against the vast skepticism and apathy of life.†   (source)
  • The man seemed to be confronted with something new in his experience, and it was dissipating a dull apathy to all that concerned others.†   (source)
  • Wavering now, restless and sleepless, given to violent starts and slow spells of apathy, she was wearing to defeat.†   (source)
  • In his almost inexplicable apathy he was content to droop supinely while Carrie drifted out of his life, just as he was willing supinely to see opportunity pass beyond his control.†   (source)
  • As they sang, this nondescript and indifferent street audience gazed, held by the peculiarity of such an unimportant-looking family publicly raising its collective voice against the vast skepticism and apathy of life.†   (source)
  • Five minutes' talk sufficed to show that some alien influence had been at work, and that it had not so much subdued his resentment as weakened his will, so that he moved under it in a state of apathy, like a dangerous lunatic who has been drugged.†   (source)
  • He felt so intensely about people that in moments of apathy he preferred to remain concealed; that one could parade a casualness into his presence was a challenge to the key on which he lived.†   (source)
  • His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and, jumping to his feet, he said aloud, "I knew she was sure to come."†   (source)
  • The vanquished citizens despair of success and they conceal their dissatisfaction in silence and in general apathy.†   (source)
  • his present state of apathy and terror.†   (source)
  • I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm.†   (source)
  • The proper object therefore of our most strenuous resistance, is far less either anarchy or despotism than the apathy which may almost indifferently beget either the one or the other.†   (source)
  • The flashing flame gleamed from one sun-burnt countenance to another, exhibiting every variety of expression, from the juvenile simplicity of the children, mingled as it was with a shade of the wildness peculiar to their semi-barbarous lives, to the dull and immovable apathy that dwelt on the features of the squatter, when unexcited.†   (source)
  • He knew no one in all England, but the spectacle of the mighty metropolis roused him somewhat from his apathy.†   (source)
  • Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening.†   (source)
  • the apathy that so altered him†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)