absurdity

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Quality of being absurd

Nouns

1. (nonsensical quality) absurdity, absurdness, nonsense; paradox, inconsistency; inanity (See folly); ludicrousness, ridiculousness, comicality; koan, oxymoron, doublethink.

2. (ridiculous quality) muddle, [Irish] bull; bathos; song and dance; travesty (See ridicule).

3. (nonsensical talk) jargon, doubletalk, twaddle, gibberish, fustian, empty talk, galimatias. Informal, poppycock, stuff and nonsense. Slang, hot air, crapola, doodlysquat, horse feathers, crock, bull[shit], bushwah, flummadiddle, blarney, blather, jive, moonshine, piffle. See unmeaningness.

4. (one who talks nonsense) Slang, blowhard, bullshit artist.

5. (art of nonsense) theater of the absurd; dada[ism].

Verbs

1. (act foolishly) play the fool, talk nonsense, talk through one's hat, go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

2. (make to look absurd) make a fool of, make absurd, burlesque (See ridicule).

Adjectives — absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, senseless, inconsistent, illogical, paradoxical, ridiculous, extravagant, fantastic, silly, funny, comic[al], unmeaning, without rhyme or reason, fatuous, ludicrous, laughable. Slang, screwy, cockamamie, cock-and-bull.

Quotations — The intolerable absurdities of life (Michael Wreszin), There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it (Cicero), No matter how you slice it, it's still baloney (Al Smith).

Antonyms, See meaning.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. improbability, foolishness, senselessness; see nonsense 1 , 2 , stupidity 2 .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

joke, foolishness, nonsense, idiocy, *bullshit, *bunk, *fiddle faddle, *hogwash, piffle, *rubbish, *tripe, drivel, twiddle-twaddle.

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun 1. Something or someone uproariously funny or absurd: Informal: hoot, joke, laugh, scream. Slang: gas, howl, panic, riot. Idiom: a laugh a minute. See LAUGHTER. 2. Foolish behavior: folly, foolery, foolishness, idiocy, imbecility, insanity, lunacy, madness, nonsense, preposterousness, senselessness, silliness, tomfoolery, zaniness. Informal: craziness. See ABILITY.