insouciant

/ɪnˈsusjənt/
IPA guide

Other forms: insouciantly

Only people with no real troubles can afford to be insouciant during times like these. Runway models are great at looking insouciant, strolling the catwalk apparently without a care in the world.

Some prefer their musical idols to be insouciant, seeming not to care what their fans think or want. Others like them more eager to please, happy to take requests and engage. The two obvious examples are Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. Armstrong would smile and encourage the audience to participate, while Davis was the insouciant master who showed no concern for or interest in what his listeners might prefer: some people found his insouciant manner irresistible.

Definitions of insouciant
  1. adjective
    marked by blithe unconcern
    “an utterly insouciant financial policy”
    “an elegantly insouciant manner”
    synonyms: casual, nonchalant
    unconcerned
    lacking in interest or care or feeling
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Word Family

Vocabulary lists containing insouciant

A Spelling Bee for Fun

A New York Times reporter participates in a spelling bee at a Brooklyn bar. Here are 18 words, (not the ones he had to spell) about his experience. Drawn from Test of Wits and Sobriety The New York Times, August 1. 2013

Negatives with "in"

All the words below have the prefix "in-" meaning "not," as their first element. The problem is that even though many of the words have negative senses in Modern English, their positive counterparts have fallen out of use, or existed only in Latin. These words may have been part of a pair, once upon a time, but their partners are no more. Through the illustrative sentences and the linguistic tidbits below, we have tried to make the history of these negative words with "in-" clearer and hopefully easier to remember.

Behave Yourself! Vocabulary for Good, Bad, and Indifferent Conduct

It's important to be precise about behavior. Saying that "someone breaks the rules" is boring and doesn't convey the nerve they have in breaking them the way "someone is brazenly flouting the rules" does. Here are words about behavior that are easy to confuse with other words, or easy to be confused about, period. Is that in- at the beginning of intemperate a negative or not? What does that mean for the word as a whole? What about the in- at the start of inure? Learn this list and find out!

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