unmeaning en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /ʌnˈmiːnɪŋ/
Etymology
From un- + meaning.
Meanings
-
(dated) Having no meaning or significance.
The danger is plainly in the other direction,—to regard all truth as scientific, to reverence statistics, to attempt to gauge the soul, to measure the affections, and thus to make all true religion impossible, by limiting our faith by our knowledge, and by dismissing those terrible problems of destiny, with which the select est finds of all generations have wrestled, as unmeaning riddles, because we cannot solve them by the aid of the differential calculus.
1858, Thomas Henry Burrowes, James Pyle Wickersham, Elnathan Elisha Higbee, The Pennsylvania School Journal, page 281:'Tis a poor Ideot Boy, / Who sits in the Sun, and twirls a Bough about, / His weak eyes seeth'd in most unmeaning tears.
1813, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, Remorse. A Tragedy, […], 2nd edition, London: […] W. Pople, […], →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 25:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| most unmeaning | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| more unmeaning | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |
Deriveds
unmeaningly · unmeaningful · unmeaningness · unmeaningfully