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UNKINDNESS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lack of sympathy
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("unkindness" is a kind of...):
insensitiveness; insensitivity (the inability to respond to affective changes in your interpersonal environment)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "unkindness"):
unhelpfulness (an inability to be helpful)
inconsiderateness; inconsideration; thoughtlessness (the quality of failing to be considerate of others)
Antonym:
kindness (the quality of being warmhearted and considerate and humane and sympathetic)
Derivation:
unkind (deficient in humane and kindly feelings)
unkind (lacking kindness)
Context examples:
As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured to impress on her daughter's mind the happiness of having such steady well-wishers as Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and the very little consideration which the neglect or unkindness of slight acquaintance like the Tilneys ought to have with her, while she could preserve the good opinion and affection of her earliest friends.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
It had such an effect upon the mind of Mr. Dick (that's not madness, I hope!) that, combined with his fear of his brother, and his sense of his unkindness, it threw him into a fever.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She talked to her, listened to her, read to her; and the tranquillity of such evenings, her perfect security in such a tete-a-tete from any sound of unkindness, was unspeakably welcome to a mind which had seldom known a pause in its alarms or embarrassments.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
To treat her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne—nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
To Catherine's simple feelings, this odd sort of reserve seemed neither kindly meant, nor consistently supported; and its unkindness she would hardly have forborne pointing out, had its inconsistency been less their friend; but Anne and Maria soon set her heart at ease by the sagacity of their I know what; and the evening was spent in a sort of war of wit, a display of family ingenuity, on one side in the mystery of an affected secret, on the other of undefined discovery, all equally acute.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
“Miss Murdstone,” I returned, “I think you and Mr. Murdstone used me very cruelly, and treated my mother with great unkindness. I shall always think so, as long as I live. But I quite agree in what you propose.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I had hoped that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though she had promised me that nothing—but how blindly I relate!
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
These difficulties, indeed, with a heart so alienated from Lucy, might not press very hard upon his patience; but melancholy was the state of the person by whom the expectation of family opposition and unkindness, could be felt as a relief!
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
But perseverance in humility of conduct and messages, in self-condemnation for Robert's offence, and gratitude for the unkindness she was treated with, procured her in time the haughty notice which overcame her by its graciousness, and led soon afterwards, by rapid degrees, to the highest state of affection and influence.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
