What does "impassionate" mean?

to affect powerfully; to arouse the passions of

What is a synonym for "impassionate"?

Common synonyms include: dispassionate, impassioned, passionate.

Pronounced //ɪmˈpæʃənət//.

//ɪmˈpæʃənət// adj, verb

adj, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Verb

1
to affect powerfully; to arouse the passions of transitive
"our Saviour Christ was one while deeply impassionated with Sorrow, another while very strongly carried away with Žeal and Anger"

Adjective

1
Filled with passion; impassioned
"The Briton Prince was ſore empaſſionate, / And woxe inclined much vnto her part, [...]"
2
Lacking passion; dispassionate
"Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, Patriarch was the word for him."

"The Briton Prince was ſore empaſſionate, / And woxe inclined much vnto her part, [...]"

Etymology 1

From Italian impassionato. By surface analysis, in- (“into”) + passion + -ate (adjective-forming suffix).

Etymology 2

From the above adjective, see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Equivalent to in- (“into”) + passion + -ate.

Etymology 3

From im- (“not”) + passionate.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.