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absurd

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /əbˈzɜːd/, /əbˈsɜːd/, US /əbˈsɝːd/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French absurde, which goes back to Old French absorde,[2][3][4] from Latin absurdus (“out of tune, senseless”), from ab- (“off, away”) and surdus (“deaf, dull, mute”).[2][3][4][5] The prefix may here be an intensive,[3][6] and the second element is possibly from an imitative root meaning to buzz or whisper.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plainly illogical, contrary to reason, of things: 1557 in Barnhart and the OED, the 1550s in Etymonline.[2][7][3]

Semantic evolution

One sense of the Latin word was “out of tune”, which led to the meaning “out of harmony with reason”;[8] English occasionally used absurd for inharmonious in music (1617, now obsolete).[7][8] It was applied to persons from 1597,[7] and as a noun, an unreasonable thing, from 1610.[7] The absurd, the human condition in a meaningless universe in existentialist thought, translates French l'absurde as used by Albert Camus: 1954 in Barnhart, 1946 in Merriam-Webster.[2][4] The Theatre of the Absurd describes drama by writers such as Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco.[8] Absurdity is recorded probably from 1472.[2]

Timeline

  • probably 1472 – absurdity.[2]
  • 1557 – absurd, illogical.[2][7]
  • 1597 – of persons.[7]
  • 1617 – out of tune (obsolete).[7]
  • 1946 – the absurd (philosophy).[4]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Ridiculously unreasonable or incongruous; ludicrous.
  2. (philosophy) Relating to the view that human life has no order or value in a meaningless universe.

Noun

  1. the absurd (philosophy): the condition of human beings in an irrational, meaningless universe, especially in existentialist thought.

Word family

  • absurdity
  • absurdly
  • absurdness
  • surd

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press