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Difficult to please or influence; stern; unyielding; obdurate; unsympathetic; unfeeling; cruel; as, a hard master; a hard heart; hard words; a hard character.

Unsympathetic; inexorable; cruel; pitiless. -- Hard"-heart`ed*ness, n.

Destitute of feeling or affection; unsympathetic; cruel. "The heartless parasites." Byron. -- Heart"less*ly, adv. -- Heart"less*ness, n.

ly, and not in consequence of some other disease or injury; -- opposed to symptomatic, sympathetic, and traumatic. -- Id`i*o*path"ic*al*ly, adv.

Not susceptible of pain or suffering; apathetic; impassible; unmoved. Impassive as the marble in the quarry. De Quincey. On the impassive ice the lightings play. Pope. -- Im*pas"sive*ly, adv. -- Im*pas"sive*ness, n.

Feeling no interest, anxiety, or care, respecting anything; unconcerned; inattentive; apathetic; heedless; as, to be indifferent to the welfare of one's family. It was a law of Solon, that any person who, in the civil commotions of the republic, remained neuter, or an indifferent spectator of the contending parties, sh…

Not eloquent; not fluent, graceful, or pathetic; not persuasive; as, ineloquent language. Nor are thy lips ungraceful, sire of men, Nor tongue ineloquent. Milton.

Sympathetic communication of like qualities or emotions; influence. Through all her train the soft infection ran. Pope. Mankind are gay or serious by infection. Rambler.

Capable of being easily diffused or spread; sympathetic; readily communicated; as, infectious mirth. The laughter was so genuine as to be infectious. W. Black.

To supply with nerves; as, the heart is innervated by pneumogastric and sympathetic branches.

Not susceptible of emotion or passion; void of feeling; apathetic; unconcerned; indifferent; as, insensible to danger, fear, love, etc.; -- often used with of or to. Accept an obligation without being a slave to the giver, or insensible to his kindness. Sir H. Wotton. Lost in their loves, insensible of shame. Dryden.…

aty; esp., prayer offered to a divine being. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty and pathetical! Shak. The whole poem is a prayer to Fortune, and the invocation is divided between the two deities. Addison.

Having feelings befitting our common nature; congenial; sympathetic; as, a kind man; a kind heart. Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was his fault. Goldsmith.

Having kindness of nature; sympathetic; characterized by a humane disposition; as, a kind-hearted landlord. To thy self at least kind-hearted prove. Shak.

Humane; congenial; sympathetic; hence, disposed to do good to; benevolent; gracious; kind; helpful; as, kindly affections, words, acts, etc. The shade by which my life was crossed, . . . Has made me kindly with my kind. Tennyson.

Plaintive; -- a term applied to a mournful or pathetic movement or style. Moore.

In a languishing manner; pathetically.

d especially of one of the ancient Greek modes or keys, the music in which was of a soft, pathetic, or voluptuous character. Softly sweet in Lydian measures, Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. Dryden. Lydian stone, a flint slate used by the ancients to try gold and silver; a touchstone. See Basanite.…

situations, with a musical accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic. In opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive accompaniment, while the actor speaks; as, the melodrama in the gravedigging scene of Beethoven's "Fidelio".

Prevailing popular custom; fashion, especially in the phrase the mode. The easy, apathetic graces of a man of the mode. Macaulay.