1
see usage paragraph below
: not carrying, staffed, or performed by people : not manned
an unmanned railroad crossing
unmanned spaceflight
2
of a hawk
: not trained
Usage of Manned and Unmanned
While manned and unmanned are still commonly used in news sources to describe spaceflights, NASA has since the early 21st century used and prescribed non-gender-specific terms, preferring such descriptors as human, piloted, and crewed for the former, and unpiloted and uncrewed for the latter.
Examples of unmanned in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
In a novel development, one unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) appeared to take off from a Ukrainian sea drone before making its way to an oil platform, where it was seen behind two fleeing figures before the camera cuts out, presumably as the drone exploded.
—
Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 8 Dec. 2024
SpaceX also plans to have an unmanned mission land on Mars in two years and humans on Mars in four years.
—William Gavin, Quartz, 4 Dec. 2024
The prohibitive cost of such weapons has been brought into stark focus during the Russia-Ukraine war, when Moscow launched numerous drone and missile attacks against Ukraine, some strikes consisting of over 100 unmanned aerial vehicles.
—Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 3 Dec. 2024
The company used a high-tech unmanned underwater drone and a 16-member crew to survey more than 5,200 miles of ocean floor in late 2023.
—Rachel Treisman, NPR, 25 Nov. 2024
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Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 8 Dec. 2024
SpaceX also plans to have an unmanned mission land on Mars in two years and humans on Mars in four years.
—William Gavin, Quartz, 4 Dec. 2024
The prohibitive cost of such weapons has been brought into stark focus during the Russia-Ukraine war, when Moscow launched numerous drone and missile attacks against Ukraine, some strikes consisting of over 100 unmanned aerial vehicles.
—Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 3 Dec. 2024
The company used a high-tech unmanned underwater drone and a 16-member crew to survey more than 5,200 miles of ocean floor in late 2023.
—Rachel Treisman, NPR, 25 Nov. 2024
See all Example Sentences for unmanned
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Cite this Entry
“Unmanned.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unmanned. Accessed 22 Dec. 2024.
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unmanned
adjective
un·manned
ˌən-ˈmand 
ˈən-
: having no crew aboard
an unmanned spacecraft
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