Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not governed or moderated by reason.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not reasoning; not having reasoning faculties; characterized by want of reason.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Behaving without reason.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective not based on reason or evidence
Etymologies
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Examples
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Living wild and free together in unreasoning delight.
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Such were men before the coming of Christ, unclean with divers passions; unreasoning, that is, lacking the reason of the Word; stupid, in their disregard of God; weak in soul; ignoble, because forgetting their heavenly birth they became slaves of their passions, and of the demons; drudges, because they toiled under the load of error laid upon them by the daemons, or the Pharisees.
Catena Aurea - Gospel of Matthew 1225?-1274 1842
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Assuming that Hamas -- or Hezbollah -- is "unreasoning" is a mistake that can prove quite costly indeed, as Israel is learning in southern Lebanon (and America learned with those fanatical terrorists in the Iraqi insurgency as well).
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In our passage through life we meet scarcely any who do not persist, with a kind of unreasoning obstinacy, in throning the material within them, and there maintaining it supreme.
The Buried Temple Maurice Maeterlinck 1905
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Mrs. Lidcote, as the huge menacing mass of New York defined itself far off across the waters, shrank back into her corner of the deck and sat listening with a kind of unreasoning terror to the steady onward drive of the screws.
Autres Temps... 1916 Edith Wharton 1899
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Maybe it's evidence of a kind of unreasoning phobia of religion in British public life, but then that seems hard to reconcile with the fact that, apart from politicians, everyone goes on about it all the time.
The Guardian World News Stephen Tomkins 2010
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"The essence of sin is selfishness; that is, the unreasoning, improper love of self.
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The unreasoning fear of terrorism and criminals not to mention your insane fear of paying your fair share shows a childish view of the world and an inability to reason.
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So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
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Perhaps ironically, the most important advice to the tea-party movement and GOP candidates on how to handle this situation comes from Franklin Roosevelt: "This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly . . . let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
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