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
Santa Monica residents go to war against Waymo There’s a battle brewing in Santa Monica with a fleet of unmanned, electric Waymo vehicles on one side, and exhausted, weary locals on the other.
—
Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2025
With no signs of feathers or biological debris, the pilots concluded the object was more likely a small unmanned aerial system (UAS), commonly referred to as a drone.
—Sarah Rumpf-Whitten , Liz Friden , Jennifer Griffin, FOXNews.com, 21 May 2025
Ansar Allah also a possesses a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including loitering munitions, also known as suicide drones.
—Tom O'Connor, MSNBC Newsweek, 5 May 2025
When a boater was thrown overboard, his unmanned vessel was left circling off the coast of Florida at nearly 40 mph as authorities struggled to stop it from afar.
—Olivia Lloyd, Miami Herald, 30 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for unmanned
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Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 31 May 2025
With no signs of feathers or biological debris, the pilots concluded the object was more likely a small unmanned aerial system (UAS), commonly referred to as a drone.
—Sarah Rumpf-Whitten , Liz Friden , Jennifer Griffin, FOXNews.com, 21 May 2025
Ansar Allah also a possesses a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including loitering munitions, also known as suicide drones.
—Tom O'Connor, MSNBC Newsweek, 5 May 2025
When a boater was thrown overboard, his unmanned vessel was left circling off the coast of Florida at nearly 40 mph as authorities struggled to stop it from afar.
—Olivia Lloyd, Miami Herald, 30 Apr. 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 4 Jun. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
unmanned
adjective
un·manned
ˌən-ˈmand 
ˈən-
: having no crew aboard
an unmanned spacecraft
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