Crossword Dictionary
APATHETIC
apathetic - a
showing little or no emotion or animation; "a woman who became active rather than apathetic as she grew older"
Synonyms
casual, complacent, disinterested, incurious, indifferent, insensible, insouciant, nonchalant, perfunctory, pococurante, unconcerned, uncurious, uninterested
Examples
They are a light-hearted, apathetic people, little given to quarrelling or to the commission of violent crime.
He had shown himself so incapable and apathetic that his followers were sick of fighting for such a despicable master.
The king, though affectionate, was cold and apathetic, and it was not till seven years after her marriage that there was any possibility of her bearing him an heir.
Etymology
"characterized by apathy," 1744, apathetick, from apathy + -ic, on model of pathetic.
apathy (n.)
c. 1600, "freedom from suffering, passionless existence," from French apathie (16c.), from Latin apathia, from Greek apatheia "freedom from suffering, impassibility, want of sensation," from apathēs "without feeling, without suffering or having suffered," from a- "without" (see a- (3)) + pathos "emotion, feeling, suffering" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer"). Originally a positive quality; the sense of "indolence of mind, indifference to what should excite" is by 1733.
-ic
Middle English -ik, -ick, word-forming element making adjectives, "having to do with, having the nature of, being, made of, caused by, similar to," from French -ique and directly from Latin -icus or from cognate Greek -ikos "in the manner of; pertaining to." From PIE adjective suffix *-(i)ko, which also yielded Slavic -isku, adjectival suffix indicating origin, the source of the -sky (Russian -skii) in many surnames. In chemistry, indicating a higher valence than names in -ous (first in benzoic, 1791).