These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'oblivious.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Todd Martensgame Critic, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2022 But this year, those attempts backfired, drawing attention to and prompting questions about the massacre from previously oblivious young Chinese internet users. Globe Staff,, 16 June 2022 Americans have had enough of President Biden's oblivious leadership.īryan Schott, The Salt Lake Tribune, 15 June 2022 And poachers arrive like joyriding fools oblivious to natural grace of the gibbons. Josh Max, Forbes, 5 July 2022 Unlike the previous three seasons, which end with most of the characters oblivious to the next season’s conflict, Season 4's cliffhanger promises fans a climatic final installment.Īnthony Robledo, USA TODAY, 1 July 2022 That’s not exactly a problem, just a broadcast-friendly treatment of the character as oblivious, but fundamentally and innocuously benign.ĭaniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 June 2022 Baryshnikov again plays Chekhov, as well as an octogenarian butler named Firs, and Hecht once again portrays the aristocratic, dreamily oblivious Madame Ranevskaya.
#SONONYM OBLIVIOUS DRIVERS#
New York Times, 6 July 2022 Also, assume all drivers are oblivious chowderheads to be avoided if at all possible. Recent Examples on the Web When the story begins, Moriarty is still an oblivious math professor and Holmes is the expert witness who condemns him as a murderer. Definition: (often followed by of') not aware. Usage: oblivious of the mounting pressures for political reform oblivious to the risks she ran not unmindful of the heavy responsibility.
The noun oblivion is related to both, of course, but it is not the noun form of oblivious. Definition: (followed by to' or of') lacking conscious awareness of.
Our obliviousness to the cat's presence in the room was quickly corrected by the dog's discovery of the cat under the chair. Whatever meaning of oblivious you choose to use, the noun that correlates with this adjective is obliviousness: The child had brought in a snake she'd discovered in the garden, oblivious of the promise she'd made to leave all found creatures outside. Oblivious can also have to do with forgetfulness, and when it's used this way, it is often followed by of (but not to): There was no chance that anyone could be oblivious of the dog, though it greeted everyone in the room with frisky leaps. The cat had crept in silently, and we were oblivious to its presence in the room. When used with this meaning, it can be followed by either to or of: Oblivious usually has to do with not being conscious or aware of someone or something. Obliviousness stands for a sort of negative act, a complete failure to remember: as a person's obliviousness of the proprieties of an occasion.How to Use Oblivious in a Sentence: does it go with 'of' or 'to'? Forgetfulness is a quality of a person: as a man remarkable for his forgetfulness. Oblivion is the state into which a thing passes when it is thoroughly and finally forgotten. In English history, the Acts of Oblivion use the word in the sense of "intentional overlooking" (1610s), especially of political offenses. Meaning "state or condition of being forgotten or lost to memory" is from early 15c. Latin lēvis also meant "rubbed smooth, ground down," from PIE *lehiu-, from root *(s)lei- "slime, slimy, sticky" (see slime (n.)) for sense evolution, compare obliterate.
Perhaps originally "even out, smooth over, efface," from ob "over" (see ob-) + root of lēvis "smooth," but de Vaan and others find that "a semantic shift from 'to be smooth' to 'to forget' is not very convincing." However no better explanation has emerged. Late 14c., oblivioun, "state or fact of forgetting, forgetfulness, loss of memory," from Old French oblivion (13c.) and directly from Latin oblivionem (nominative oblivio) "forgetfulness a being forgotten," from oblivisci (past participle oblitus) "forget," which is of uncertain origin.