Word.ws English Dictionary

abstract nonsense

abstract nonsense noun: details which are straightforward but so tedious that an author or lecturer would rather skip them (especially those of a category theoretical nature).

Noun

abstract nonsense (uncountable)

  1. (humorous) Details which are straightforward but so tedious that an author or lecturer would rather skip them (especially those of a category theoretical nature).
  2. (humorous) Details which involve diagram chasing.
    • ³Lang’s Algebra [Lan02, p. 759] supports the general consensus that this was not intended as an epithet:
      In the forties and fifties (mostly in the works of Cartan, Eilenberg, MacLane, and Steenrod, see [CE56]), it was realized that there was a systematic way of developing certain relations of...2016, Emily Riehl, Category Theory in Context (Aurora: Dover modern math originals), New York: Dover, →ISBN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Dec 2019, page x
  3. (humorous) Category theory in general.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see abstract, nonsense.

Origin of abstract nonsense

Coined by Norman Steenrod, popularized by Serge Lang.

Questions about abstract nonsense

What does abstract nonsense mean?
Abstract nonsense means details which are straightforward but so tedious that an author or lecturer would rather skip them (especially those of a category theoretical nature).
What part of speech is abstract nonsense?
Abstract nonsense is a noun.

Words near abstract nonsense in the dictionary

  1. abstract method
  2. abstract methods
  3. abstract model
  4. abstract models
  5. abstract music
  6. abstract nonsense
  7. abstract noun
  8. abstract nouns
  9. abstract number
  10. abstract numbers
  11. abstract of title

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abstract nonsense (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-abstract nonsense.wav.

Cite this entry: “abstract nonsense.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abstract_nonsense. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.