ABSURDITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does absurdity mean? 

• ABSURDITY (noun)
  The noun ABSURDITY has 2 senses:

1. a message whose content is at variance with reason

2. a ludicrous folly

  Familiarity information: ABSURDITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ABSURDITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A message whose content is at variance with reason

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

absurdity; absurdness; ridiculousness

Hypernyms ("absurdity" is a kind of...):

bunk; hokum; meaninglessness; nonsense; nonsensicality (a message that seems to convey no meaning)

Derivation:

absurd (inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A ludicrous folly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

absurdity; fatuity; fatuousness; silliness

Context example:

the crowd laughed at the absurdity of the clown's behavior

Hypernyms ("absurdity" is a kind of...):

folly; foolishness; unwiseness (the trait of acting stupidly or rashly)

Derivation:

absurd (so unreasonable as to invite derision)

 Context examples 

So each week beheld some fresh absurdity.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A scheme, worthy of Mrs Wallis's understanding, by all accounts; but my sensible nurse Rooke sees the absurdity of it.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I began one note, in a six-syllable line, “Oh, do not remember”—but that associated itself with the fifth of November, and became an absurdity.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But, when we returned to his palace, he asked me “how I liked the building, what absurdities I observed, and what quarrel I had with the dress or looks of his domestics?”

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Old Ebbits looked at me in childlike wonder, while Zilla sneered openly at the absurdity of my question.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck and rested his rifle across the rail.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William's too long.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

The absurdity of her curiosity and her fears—could they ever be forgotten?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I will not reason here—nor will I stop for YOU to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already bound.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)