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 with and without human crews, respectively, NASA has since the early 21st century used and prescribed gender-neutral terms, preferring such descriptors as human, piloted, and crewed for the former, and unpiloted and uncrewed for the latter.
unmanned
2 of 2past tense and past participle of unman
Cite this Entry
“Unmanned.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unmanned. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.
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