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
But in a world of unmanned autonomous systems, access to batteries and AI systems is the new competitive advantage.
—
Keith Norman, Fortune, 18 July 2025
Still, the essential question remains: In the uncertainties of combat, will Luckey’s unmanned systems work?
—Dexter Filkins, New Yorker, 14 July 2025
Its conflict with Russia has forced it to build, iterate and deploy highly effective, low-cost unmanned systems.
—Hunter Lacroix, Baltimore Sun, 13 July 2025
Israel’s Beresheet was an unmanned spacecraft that included 1,000 tardigrades stored in a time capsule, which also contained digital records of books, Wikipedia, and other items.
—Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 3 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for unmanned
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Keith Norman, Fortune, 18 July 2025
Still, the essential question remains: In the uncertainties of combat, will Luckey’s unmanned systems work?
—Dexter Filkins, New Yorker, 14 July 2025
Its conflict with Russia has forced it to build, iterate and deploy highly effective, low-cost unmanned systems.
—Hunter Lacroix, Baltimore Sun, 13 July 2025
Israel’s Beresheet was an unmanned spacecraft that included 1,000 tardigrades stored in a time capsule, which also contained digital records of books, Wikipedia, and other items.
—Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 3 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for unmanned
Cite this Entry
“Unmanned.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unmanned. Accessed 29 Jul. 2025.
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unmanned
adjective
un·manned
ˌən-ˈmand 
ˈən-
: having no crew aboard
an unmanned spacecraft
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