Wiktionary

asocial

English

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Etymology

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From a- +‎ social; in the sense of “antisocial” and as a noun, appears to be a calque of German asozial / Asozialer.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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asocial (comparative more asocial, superlative most asocial)

  1. Not social, not relating to society.
    • 1974, Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, New York: Schocken Books, 1975, Chapter 5, pp. 127-128,[2]
      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 […]
  2. Not sociable; having minimal social connections with others; not inclined to connect with others socially.
    • 1938, Sinclair Lewis, chapter 36, in The Prodigal Parents‎[3], Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, page 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[4], New York: Dell, published 1968, page 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[5], New York: Knopf, page 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[6], Boston: Little, Brown, published 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.
  3. (colloquial, proscribed) Antisocial.
    • 1951, Hannah Arendt, “Totalitarianism in Power”, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (A Harvest/HBJ Book), new edition, San Diego, Calif., New York, N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1973, →ISBN, 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[7], New York: Viking, published 1994, page 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

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Translations

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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

Noun

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asocial (plural asocials)

  1. 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[8], Toronto: HarperCollins, published 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.”

References

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  1. ^ 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.”[1]

French

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Etymology

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From a- +‎ social.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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asocial (feminine asociale, masculine plural asociaux, feminine plural asociales)

  1. asocial

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Romanian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from French asocial.

Adjective

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asocial m or n (feminine singular asocială, masculine plural asociali, feminine and neuter plural asociale)

  1. asocial

Declension

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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

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Etymology

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From a- +‎ social.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): (Spain) /asoˈθjal/ [a.soˈθjal]
  • IPA(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /asoˈsjal/ [a.soˈsjal]
  • Rhymes: -al
  • Syllabification: a‧so‧cial

Adjective

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asocial m or f (masculine and feminine plural asociales)

  1. asocial
    Antonym: social

Further reading

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Swedish

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Adjective

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asocial (not comparable)

  1. asocial (not sociable)
    Synonym: osocial
  2. antisocial
    Synonym: antisocial

Declension

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Inflection of asocial
Indefinite Positive Comparative Superlative2
Common singular asocial — —
Neuter singular asocialt — —
Plural asociala — —
Masculine plural3 asociale — —
Definite Positive Comparative Superlative
Masculine singular1 asociale — —
All asociala — —
1) Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine.
2) The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative.
3) Dated or archaic

References

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