inanity en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Southern-England) audio
- /ɪˈnænɪti/
- ĭ-năn′-ĭt-ē
Etymology
From French inanité, from Latin inānitās (“emptiness”), equivalent to inane + -ity.
Meanings
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(uncountable) The property of being inane, of lacking material of interest or satisfaction, emptiness.
All those who criticise the inanity of the effort required by the stemmatic approach without clearly adopting a position of their own, do not, in my view, touch upon the core of the problem […]
2020, Alessandro Bausi, “7.5 Philological practices: Ethiopic”, in Philipp Roelli, editor, Handbook of Stemmatology: History, Methodology, Digital Approaches, De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 493:
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(countable, uncountable) Something that is inane.
No sooner had Charles left Washington than Trump, predictably, began exploiting their private conversations to justify his Iranian inanities.
2026 May 2, Simon Tisdall, “The king went to Washington to save Britain’s bacon. He may also have shown the US how to save itself”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would talk over our heads - during meals, for instance - of this or the other social or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of reality were among the importances of life.
1895, Kenneth Graham, The Golden Age, London, page 5:Working in any bureaucracy means being bedeviled by inanities daily.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| inanities | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Translations (21)
pl czczość (property of being inane) · fr inanité (property of being inane) · ru бессмы́сленность (property of being inane) · gl inanidade (property of being inane) · nl leegheid (property of being inane) · pl niedorzeczność (something that is inane) · de Belanglosigkeit (property of being inane) · nl inhoudsloosheid (property of being inane) · es inanidad (property of being inane) · de Belanglosigkeit (something that is inane) · pl niedorzeczność (property of being inane) · de Sinnfreiheit (property of being inane) · pt inanidade (property of being inane) · de Inanität (property of being inane) · pl bezmyślność (property of being inane) · pl bezsensowność (property of being inane) · ca inanitat (property of being inane) · de Nichtigkeit (property of being inane) · nl stupiditeit (property of being inane) · nl zinloosheid (property of being inane) · de Nichtigkeit (something that is inane)