unmanned

From un- +‎ manned.

• IPA^(key): /ʌnˈmænd/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ænd

unmanned (not comparable)

1. Not operated by a person or a crew.

   Synonyms: uncrewed, crewless

   Antonyms: manned, crewed

   Coordinate term: unpiloted (not synonymous; pilots may be either remote or irrelevant)

   unmanned drones

   an automated e-mail message sent from an unmanned mailbox

   • 2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:

     In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way.

   • 2015 May 13, Molly Blake, “Would You Buy a Robot From a Robot?”, in The Atlantic‎^[1]:

     But her presence, via Beam, a teleconference robot that looks like the offspring of a computer and a Segway, roams the floor at what Beam reps say is the world’s first and only unmanned store.

   • 2015 May 22, Sophie Gilbert, “Unmanned: Why Culture Is Suddenly Obsessed With Drones”, in The Atlantic‎^[2]:

     The album [Drones] tackles issues of agency and independence and coercion within relationships as much as it acknowledges warfare and an imagined totalitarian force that needs to be overcome, but the image of unmanned robots wielding power from the sky is always present.

   • 2023 November 13, Rebecca Cairns, “This unmanned lifeboat could rescue drowning people on its own”, in CNN‎^[3]:

     Turning to artificial intelligence and smart tech to overhaul maritime safety, his company Zelim is working on a trio of life-saving technologies — including an autonomous, unmanned lifeboat called “Guardian.”

2. Of a bird of prey: not accustomed to the presence of human beings.

   Coordinate term: undomesticated

3. (slang, humorous, neologism) Of a setting, situation or event, devoid of males.

• The sense of man involved is not necessarily the sex-specific sense, but to avoid any interpretation involving sexism, the terms uncrewed and crewed are unambiguous. This distinction is parallel with man/humans (for example, since the dawn of man versus since the dawn of humans).

• remote-controlled
• unstaffed
• uncrewed

unmanned

1. simple past and past participle of unman