asocial
English
Etymology
a- + social; in the sense of “antisocial” and as a noun, appears to be a calque of German asozial / Asozialer.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /eɪˈsəʊʃ(ə)l/
Adjective
asocial (comparative more asocial, superlative most asocial)
- Not social, not relating to society.
- 1974, Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, New York: Schocken Books, 1975, Chapter 5, pp. 127-128,
- All media operations are in effect desocialised […] . But it is then interesting that from this wholly unhistorical and asocial base McLuhan projects certain images of society […]
- 1974, Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, New York: Schocken Books, 1975, Chapter 5, pp. 127-128,
- Not sociable; having minimal social connections with others; not inclined to connect with others socially.
- 1938, Sinclair Lewis, The Prodigal Parents, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, Chapter 36, p. 268,
- Mrs Alphen, from her deck chair, would call at him brightly, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, being so selfish and neglecting us ladies and all!” and she would gesture at the deck chair beside her, but he would only smile and scuttle away, realizing that he was asocial and a scoundrel.
- 1967, Joan Didion, “7000 Romaine, Los Angeles 38” in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, New York: Dell, 1968, p. 72,
- In a nation which increasingly appears to prize social virtues, Howard Hughes remains not merely antisocial but grandly, brilliantly, surpassingly, asocial. He is the last private man, the dream we no longer admit.
- 1995, Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars, New York: Knopf, p. 291,
- She herself was already asocial at the age of six months and stiffened in her mother’s arms at this time, and such reactions, common in autism, she also finds inexplicable in terms of theory of mind.
- 2000, David Foster Wallace, “Rhetoric and the Math Melodrama” in Both Flesh and Not, Boston: Little, Brown, 2012,
- And it’s maybe because of math’s absolute, wholly abstract Truth that so many people still view the discipline as dry or passionless and its practitioners as asocial dweebs.
- 1938, Sinclair Lewis, The Prodigal Parents, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, Chapter 36, p. 268,
- (sometimes proscribed) Antisocial.
- 1951, Hannah Arendt, chapter 12, in The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York: Harcourt Brace, OCLC 52814049, part 3: Totalitarianism, page 449:
- Contrasting with the complete haphazardness with which the inmates are selected are the categories, meaningless in themselves but useful from the standpoint of organization, into which they are usually divided on their arrival. In the German camps there were criminals, politicals, asocial elements, religious offenders, and Jews, all distinguished by insignia.
- 1977, Saul Bellow, “The Jefferson Lectures” in It All Adds Up, New York: Viking, 1994, p. 130,
- The social worker speaks of asocial behavior. The term is familiar to the young criminal. The social worker is able to explain the causes of this asocial behavior. But the delinquent could do it too, and in the very same terms.
-
Derived terms
- asociality
- asocialize
Translations
not social
|
not sociable
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
antisocial — see antisocial
Noun
asocial (plural asocials)
- A person considered to be antisocial or to exhibit antisocial behaviour, especially as a classification used by the Nazi regime in Germany.[1]
- 2011, Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues, Toronto: HarperCollins, 2013, Part 2, pp. 49-50,
- “Remember, there was no on-paper legislation against blacks, so they were often admitted to work camps on trumped-up charges and under various crimes. Some were interned as Communists, or as immigrants, who wore the blue badge. Or as homosexuals, who wore the pink badge, or as repeat criminals, who wore the green badge, or asocials, who wore the black badge.”
- 2011, Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues, Toronto: HarperCollins, 2013, Part 2, pp. 49-50,
References
- Eric Joseph Epstein and Philip Rosen, Dictionary of the Holocaust, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997: “Asocials. Catch-all group whom the Nazis deemed socially unfit or unable to abide by social norms of the ‘national community.’ Affected groups included habitual criminals, juvenile delinquents, homosexuals, prostitutes, vagrants, ‘work shy people,’ drug addicts, and Roma.”
French
Etymology
a- + social
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /a.sɔ.sjal/
Audio (file) - Homophones: asociale, asociales
Adjective
asocial (feminine asociale, masculine plural asociaux, feminine plural asociales)
- asocial
Further reading
- “asocial”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Anagrams
- coalisa
Romanian
Etymology
From French asocial.
Adjective
asocial m or n (feminine singular asocială, masculine plural asociali, feminine and neuter plural asociale)
- asocial
Declension
Declension of asocial
| singular | plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | neuter | feminine | masculine | neuter | feminine | ||
| nominative/ accusative | indefinite | asocial | asocială | asociali | asociale | ||
| definite | asocialul | asociala | asocialii | asocialele | |||
| genitive/ dative | indefinite | asocial | asociale | asociali | asociale | ||
| definite | asocialului | asocialei | asocialilor | asocialelor | |||
Spanish
Etymology
a- + social
Adjective
asocial (plural asociales)
- asocial
- Antonym: social
Further reading
- “asocial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014