1
as in ignorance
a state of being disregardful or unconscious of one's surroundings, concerns, or obligations
her general obliviousness often results in her walking into walls and other hard-to-miss objects
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in unawareness
the state of being unaware or uninformed
obliviousness of a law is not an acceptable excuse for breaking it
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of obliviousness
Arriving empty-handed, leaving messes behind, being hours late — behaviors like these reflect obliviousness or busyness at best, or selfishness or entitlement at worst.
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Kristen Rogers, CNN Money, 25 Dec. 2025
Gentleman thief Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven) circles the prize while Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) bungles the pursuit with sublime obliviousness.
—Lilah Ramzi, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2025
There is a sort of beautiful obliviousness to Mann’s turn as Liz.
—Esther Zuckerman, IndieWire, 7 Sep. 2025
There is total and telling obliviousness to his giant flat-screen television, tuned to the SEC Network and a women’s soccer match between Arkansas and … Notre Dame.
—Brian Hamilton, New York Times, 27 Aug. 2025
But the flip side of that obliviousness is a tremendous ambition and a sort of mad optimism.
—Seth Abramovitch, HollywoodReporter, 14 Aug. 2025
The disgust stems both from that aura of obliviousness and from a retrospective knowledge that the sincerity of late-two-thousands indie music was quickly co-opted into a more commercial version of itself.
—Kyle Chayka, New Yorker, 13 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for obliviousness
Noun
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Here in the United States, the writer and filmmaker Mike Judge has garnered praise over the course of his career for getting laughs out of broken systems and absurd ignorance in American culture.—
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In these special kinds of systems, even a minuscule amount of uncertainty in the measurement of the initial state of a system very quickly compounds into complete ignorance about its future behavior.—
Noun
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The organization works with people who have lost their vision, teaching them that blindness does not have to limit independence or opportunity.—
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The condition is an emergency that can lead to blindness if not treated.—
Noun
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There’s a dangerous, stubborn forgetfulness in the vaunted Land of Sunshine.—
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More powerful than the noise of breaking news or the forgetfulness of scrolling.—
Noun
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Tarr told his sweeping film in chapters, and the prolonged runtime was crucial to the story’s power, showing an entire world devolving into hopelessness and oblivion, practically in real time.—
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But automobiles with manual transmission appear to be on a road to oblivion as technology transforms cars into computers on wheels.—
Cite this Entry
“Obliviousness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/obliviousness. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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