Inhuman

How to spell inhuman

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce inhuman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does inhuman mean?

1. adjectiveLacking compassion or pity; brutally cruel toward others.
2. adjectiveNot having the qualities or nature of a human being.

Inhuman in a sentence

• The prisoners were kept in inhuman conditions for years.

• The runner kept up an almost inhuman pace for the entire marathon.

• Critics called the new policy inhuman and lacking any compassion.

• The machine worked with an inhuman precision no person could match.

Where does inhuman come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word joins the negative prefix in-, meaning 'not', to 'human', which descends from the Latin humanus, the adjective for 'of or belonging to people'. That Latin root is closely tied to homo, the word for a human being, and to humus, meaning 'ground' or 'earth', reflecting an old idea of people as earthly creatures. English took 'human' through Old French in the 1300s and 1400s, and the negative form 'inhuman' followed by the early 1400s to describe behaviour thought unworthy of a person. The spelling sometimes trips people up because it keeps a single n after the prefix (in- + human), not a doubled one, and because the related noun 'humanity' shows the same humanus root. Over time the word narrowed from simply 'not human' to its modern, dominant sense of cruel and pitiless treatment.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• human (from Latin humanus: of or belonging to people)