Crossword clues for absurdity
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Absurdity \Ab*surd"i*ty\ (-[i^]*t[y^]), n.; pl. Absurdities (-t[i^]z). [L. absurditas: cf. F. absurdite.]
The quality of being absurd or inconsistent with obvious truth, reason, or sound judgment. ``The absurdity of the actual idea of an infinite number.''
--Locke.-
That which is absurd; an absurd action; a logical contradiction.
His travels were full of absurdities.
--Johnson.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 15c., from Middle French absurdité, from Late Latin absurditatem (nominative absurditas) "dissonance, incongruity," noun of state from Latin absurdus "out of tune;" figuratively "incongruous, silly, senseless," from ab-, intensive prefix, + surdus "dull, deaf, mute" (see susurration).
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context obsolete rare English) dissonance. (Attested from around 1350 to 1470 until the late 17th century.) 2 (context countable English) That which is absurd; an absurd action; a logical contradiction. (First attested in the late 15th century.) 3 (context uncountable English) The quality of being absurd or inconsistent with obvious truth, reason, or sound judgment. (First attested in the early 16th century.)
WordNet
n. a message whose content is at variance with reason [syn: absurdness, ridiculousness]
a ludicrous folly; "the crowd laughed at the absurdity of the clown's behavior" [syn: fatuity, fatuousness, silliness]
Wikipedia
An absurdity is a thing that is extremely unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "this encyclopedia article is absurd." It derives from the Latin absurdum meaning " out of tune", hence irrational. The Latin surdus means " deaf", implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with seriousness in reasoning. In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with ridiculousness and nonsense. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Absurdism is a concept in philosophy related to the notion of absurdity.
Usage examples of "absurdity".
Do not let us encumber and disfigure religion by absurdities, impossibilities, and antinomian abominations.
Somehow Brine had suspended his disbelief and denied the absurdity of the situation.
The thin margin of their prosperity and the absurdity of calling them exploiters was revealed in Soviet census data examined by Richard Pipes, showing that only 2 percent of peasant households had any hired help, and these averaged one employee each.
His very proneness to be gulled by strangers and to pay extravagantly for absurdities is excused under the plea of munificence, for John is always more generous than wise.
Becca might have laughed at the absurdity of the joke, but with Mish, it just was possible.
This sudden change and alteration of celestiall honour, did greatly inflame and kindle the love of very Venus, who unable to temper her selfe from indignation, shaking her head in raging sort, reasoned with her selfe in this manner, Behold the originall parent of all these elements, behold the Lady Venus renowned throughout all the world, with whome a mortall maiden is joyned now partaker of honour : my name registred in the city of heaven is prophaned and made vile by terrene absurdities.
The myth of the illogical or prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that museum of learned absurdities and abortions which speculative anthropology is constantly enriching with fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and wasted industry.
The great landholders and their agents maintain that to quote Griffiths against a landlord who has spent money in improvements since that valuation was made, and let his farms so low that other people can relet them at a profit, is a manifest absurdity.
Things that were terrible enough at the time appear to us now as they recede into the past through a thickening, highly retractile veil of grotesqueness and picturesque absurdity.
Fitzgerald or not, however, it must be allowed that the vulgarity, servility, and gross absurdity of the newspaper scribblers is well rendered.
The fallen trees, the crushed thicket, the splintered limbs, the rudely torn-up soil, were made hideous by their grotesque juxtaposition with the wrecked fragments of civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles, battered hats, soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and the crowning absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirt hanging from a branch.
But, leaving out of view the inherent absurdity of the doctrine of a physical resurrection, there is a fatal difficulty in the way of both these supposititious modes of mutual knowledge in another world.
The complexion of that case had somehow forced upon him the general idea of the absurdity of things human, which in the abstract is sufficiently annoying to an unphilosophical temperament, and in concrete instances becomes exasperating beyond endurance.
Wordsworth was continually tinkering at his verse, to the subsequent despair of conscientious variorum editors, and that most of the absurdities and infelicities in his first editions disappeared under the correcting influence of his sarcastic critics and his own maturing taste.
He answered my question by the narrative of his imprisonment and flight, the whole story being a tissue of absurdities and lies.