Subhuman
adjective
Regarding someone as less than a human or inferior in some way.
The way they treated their prisoners was subhuman.
Often appears as...
- treated like subhuman
- subhuman conditions
Usage tips
Disapproving
noun
A person viewed as less than human.
The captors saw their hostages as subhumans.
Often appears as...
- treated like a subhuman
- regard as a subhuman
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Regarding someone as less than a human or inferior in some way.
The way they treated their prisoners was subhuman.
Often appears as...
- treated like subhuman
- subhuman conditions
Usage tips
Disapproving
noun
A person viewed as less than human.
The captors saw their hostages as subhumans.
Often appears as...
- treated like a subhuman
- regard as a subhuman
Usage tips
Disapproving
Definition 1 of 2
Pro Tip 1/3Negative Connotation
Subhuman carries a strong negative and dehumanizing implication, often causing offense.
The discriminatory comments were appalling, reducing the individuals to something subhuman.
Pro Tip 2/3Harsh Contexts
Often used in contexts discussing extreme neglect, cruelty, or conditions deemed unacceptable for humans.
The refugees lived in subhuman conditions, with no access to clean water or shelter.
Pro Tip 3/3Debasing Treatment
Used to describe actions that degrade someone's dignity or rights.
Imprisoned without trial, they received subhuman treatment.
Pro Tip 1/3Negative Connotation
Subhuman carries a strong negative and dehumanizing implication, often causing offense.
The discriminatory comments were appalling, reducing the individuals to something subhuman.
Pro Tip 2/3Harsh Contexts
Often used in contexts discussing extreme neglect, cruelty, or conditions deemed unacceptable for humans.
The refugees lived in subhuman conditions, with no access to clean water or shelter.
Pro Tip 3/3Debasing Treatment
Used to describe actions that degrade someone's dignity or rights.
Imprisoned without trial, they received subhuman treatment.
Pro Tip 1/3Negative Connotation
Subhuman carries a strong negative and dehumanizing implication, often causing offense.
The discriminatory comments were appalling, reducing the individuals to something subhuman.
Pro Tip 2/3Harsh Contexts
Often used in contexts discussing extreme neglect, cruelty, or conditions deemed unacceptable for humans.
The refugees lived in subhuman conditions, with no access to clean water or shelter.
Pro Tip 3/3Debasing Treatment
Used to describe actions that degrade someone's dignity or rights.
Imprisoned without trial, they received subhuman treatment.
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Video examples
The surprising decline...
and journalism and memoirs and realistic fiction and travel and literacy, which allows you to project yourself into the lives of other people that formerly you may have treated as subhuman, and also to realize the accidental contingency of your own station in life,
Video examples
The surprising decline...
and journalism and memoirs and realistic fiction and travel and literacy, which allows you to project yourself into the lives of other people that formerly you may have treated as subhuman, and also to realize the accidental contingency of your own station in life,
Example 1 of 1
Quote examples
Maya Angelou
American Poet
If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.
Quote examples
Michael Horse
American Actor
The main problem with films is that everybody always thinks of us as a violent people. We are not. We are spiritual. And when you show someone without a sense of humor or families, which is the way you usually see Indians in movies, then they are without a spiritual base and become subhuman.
Quote examples
Alan Furst
American Author
Poland is a wildly dramatic and tragic story. It's just unbelievable what went on with those people. How they survive, I don't really know. The Germans had a particular hatred for the Poles; they really considered them subhuman Slavs, and they were very brutal to them.
Quote examples
Vic Mensa
American Musician
I don't love America; I love people and places in America. How could I truly love an entity that views me as subhuman, that wrote in its constitution for me to be considered three-fifths of a person?
Quote examples
Albert Bandura
Canadian Psychologist
In the final forms of moral disengagement, wrongdoers treat adversaries as subhuman animalistic, demonic beings. Expunging any sense of shared humanity eliminates moral restraints.
Quote examples
Henry Louis Gates
American Critic
The Western stereotype of Africa and its black citizens as devoid of reason and, therefore, subhuman was often shared by white master and black ex-slave alike.
Quote examples
Armstrong Williams
American Journalist
Very simply, the culture of another people does not have to be accepted when it is subhuman!
Quote examples
Maya Angelou
American Poet
If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.
Quote examples
Michael Horse
American Actor
The main problem with films is that everybody always thinks of us as a violent people. We are not. We are spiritual. And when you show someone without a sense of humor or families, which is the way you usually see Indians in movies, then they are without a spiritual base and become subhuman.
Quote examples
Alan Furst
American Author
Poland is a wildly dramatic and tragic story. It's just unbelievable what went on with those people. How they survive, I don't really know. The Germans had a particular hatred for the Poles; they really considered them subhuman Slavs, and they were very brutal to them.
Quote examples
Vic Mensa
American Musician
I don't love America; I love people and places in America. How could I truly love an entity that views me as subhuman, that wrote in its constitution for me to be considered three-fifths of a person?
Quote examples
Albert Bandura
Canadian Psychologist
In the final forms of moral disengagement, wrongdoers treat adversaries as subhuman animalistic, demonic beings. Expunging any sense of shared humanity eliminates moral restraints.
Quote examples
Henry Louis Gates
American Critic
The Western stereotype of Africa and its black citizens as devoid of reason and, therefore, subhuman was often shared by white master and black ex-slave alike.
Quote examples
Armstrong Williams
American Journalist
Very simply, the culture of another people does not have to be accepted when it is subhuman!
Example 1 of 7
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