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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
incongruity
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Another incongruity was that between de Gaulle's ambition and the resources at his disposal.
▪ Behind their departing backs, Ladislaw laughs at the incongruity of the engaged couple.
▪ Like his entire tenure as chairman, the scene had an element of incongruity that amounted to the surreal.
▪ One was the incongruity between de Gaulle's ambitions and the needs of a nation on the breadline.
▪ There is another sort of incongruity in the materials.
▪ There were fatal incongruities about grandeur in the circumstances of 1944-46.
▪ Thus Hazlitt piles up instances of how humour results from surprise, incongruity, absurdity and misunderstanding.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Incongruity

Incongruity \In`con*gru"i*ty\, n.; pl. Incongruities. [Pref. in- not + congruity: cf. F. incongruit['e].]

  1. The quality or state of being incongruous; lack of congruity; unsuitableness; inconsistency; impropriety.

    The fathers make use of this acknowledgment of the incongruity of images to the Deity, from thence to prove the incongruity of the worship of them.
    --Bp. Stillingfleet.

  2. Disagreement of parts; lack of symmetry or of harmony.

  3. That which is incongruous; lack of congruity.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
incongruity

1530s, from French incongruité or directly from Medieval Latin incongruitas, from Latin in- "not" (see in- (1)) + congruitas (see congruity).

Wiktionary
incongruity

n. 1 The state of being incongruous, or lacking congruence. 2 An instance or point of disagreement; a dissimilarity; a discrepancy; an inconsistency. 3 A thing that is incongruous.

WordNet
incongruity

n. the quality of disagreeing; being unsuitable and inappropriate [syn: incongruousness] [ant: congruity, congruity]

Usage examples of "incongruity".

She stifled a giggle, not only at the Gulliver in Lilliput image, but the incongruity of the Muppet monsters protecting a soldier.

The noble elfs party dress contrasted sharply with the austerity of the furnishings and the martial trappings that adorned the walls, but Parseval seemed unaware of the incongruity of his appearance in these surroundings.

The persons who did not come wrote letters full of incongruities cleverly worded, which I took good care not to point out to him.

Most of the lithioids can't be smashed or studied and exist mostly to explain gaps and incongruities in annulation equations.

But it is less easy for an English, French, or Italian critic than a German to pardon the incongruities, incoherences, and silly buffooneries which mar the opera.

La Mancha as the knight's country and scene of his chivalries is of a piece with the pasteboard helmet, the farm-labourer on ass-back for a squire, knighthood conferred by a rascally ventero, convicts taken for victims of oppression, and the rest of the incongruities between Don Quixote's world and the world he lived in, between things as he saw them and things as they were.

Nell hardly noticed this incongruity because the corgis heard Rita turning the latch on the glass doors and rushed toward them yapping, and this drew out the Constable himself, who approached them squinting through the dark glass, and once he was out from behind the rhodies, Nell could see that there was something amiss with the flesh of his body.

Trent saw no incongruity in his presence among the lowest street hawkers and costers, it is also true that the hawkers and costers, usually tongue-tied and uneasy in the presence of gentlemen, were equally relaxed at these sporting events, laughing and nudging freely men whom they would not dare to touch under ordinary circumstances.

In most, I believe in all, of the Holy Land convents there are two personages so strangely raised above their brethren in all that dignifies humanity, that their bearing the same habit, their dwelling under the same roof, their worshipping the same God (consistent as all this is with the spirit of their religion), yet strikes the mind with a sense of wondrous incongruity.

There was no floating or moving swiftly through the tunnel like some of my subjects have described, and there were no dreamlike discontinuities or incongruities.

The keg, with the top hacked off, was substituted for the missing soup kettle in the bucket brigade, the fires were put out, and the incongruity was repaired.

The incongruity amused her, and only with difficulty could she convince the part of her brain in charge of reading that this was the Latin, not the Cyrillic alphabet.

That explains away any incongruities of voice or manner which otherwise might awaken suspicion.

They had talked until nearly four in the morning, watching Prince Cerdic, who probably believed himself incognito behind a mask of seashells and pearls, winning thousands of Imperial Eagle coins in the gambling rooms while Suraklin had looked on, his suit of oldfashioned blue velvet and lace transformed into a macabre incongruity by the grinning mask of a skull.

Setting up the necessary equipment to test for incongruities is extremely expensive.