Absurdity

//əbˈsɜːd.ɪ.ti// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    That which is absurd; an absurd action; a logical contradiction. countable

    "And it is a fact that in these two days the boy had almost talked over his mother, too; had parried all her objections one after another with that indignant good sense which is often the perfection of absurdity …"

  2. 2
    a ludicrous folly wordnet
  3. 3
    The quality of being absurd or inconsistent with obvious truth, reason, or sound judgment. uncountable

    "The absurdity of the actual idea of an infinite number"

  4. 4
    a message whose content is at variance with reason wordnet
  5. 5
    Dissonance. countable, obsolete, rare, uncountable

Example

More examples

"They say everything's bigger in Texas, and that includes absurdity in law enforcement."

Etymology

First attested around 1472. From Middle English absurdite, then from either Middle French absurdité, or from Late Latin absurditas (“dissonance, incongruity”), from Latin absurdus + -itas (“quality, state, degree”). Equivalent to absurd + -ity.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.