Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use absurd in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Absurd means contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory; nonsensical; ridiculous; silly. Example: “Face it. "It's raining cats and dogs" is an absurd yet evocative expression.”

Examples of absurd by meaning

adjectiveContrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates...

  • It's absurd, but I feel like the Jackdaw of Rheims.” ¶ She winced and bowed her head.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

adjectiveHaving no rational or orderly relationship to people's lives; meaningless; lacking order or value.

  • Adults have condemned them to live in what must seem like an absurd universe.1968 March 2, Joseph Featherstone, “A New Kind of Schooling”, in The New Republic

More sentences with absurd

  • Face it. "It's raining cats and dogs" is an absurd yet evocative expression.From the entry let's face it
  • The pettiness of the accounting department asking me to save a receipt from a fast-food restaurant was absurd.From the entry pettiness
  • This show is sensationally absurd and trite, and if you watch it, you know it.2025 April 3, Marina Hyde, “It’s With Love, Meghan – not just a TV show but a landmark piece of art. And not in a good way”, in The Guardian. From the entry trite
  • To the uninitiated, this might sound absurd, with images of chickens signing above the dotted line.2024 November 22, Stephanie Hanes, Melanie Stetson Freeman, “Moody chickens? Playful bumblebees? Science decodes the rich inner lives of…. From the entry dotted line
  • “This situation is very difficult for people on Kinmen and very absurd.”2022 September 23, Richard Lloyd Parry, “Kinmen islanders living in fear of day China attacks Taiwan”, in The Times, →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry Fujian
  • Some of these perks are absurd, mainly High-Caliber Rounds and Vorpal Weapon.2022 September 7, Charles Burgar, “Destiny 2: The 10 Best Scout Rifles For PvP, Ranked”, in TheGamer, archived from the original on 12 Dec…. From the entry three-tap
  • But to return to the clipped tones of the Fifties dinner-jacketed BBC would be absurd today.2020 January 2, Colin Robson, “The BBC should look to the future”, in Evening Standard, page 11. From the entry dinner-jacketed
  • Consider, first, their absurd sartorial appurtenances, such as leggings sewn with skinny girths.2014 August 2, Teddy Wayne, “A Parchment on Millennials”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry appurtenance
  • On the plus side, I'd be so hot-natured the absurd temperatures might feel pleasant.2013, Suzanne Johnson, Elysian Fields, →ISBN, page 65. From the entry hot-natured
  • And if she was absurd, so was the house and its cast.2010, Wyndham Lewis, Self Condemned, →ISBN. From the entry rapportage
  • These alcoholic stories break open the experience of the absurd in vivid, painful, and humorous ways.2004, James B. Nelson, Thirst: God and the alcoholic experience, page 127. From the entry drunkalogue
  • Thus a sociology of the absurd takes as its subject matter every person's quest for the nonabsurd.1989, Stanford M. Lyman, Marvin B. Scott, A Sociology of the Absurd, page 192. From the entry nonabsurd
  • In any other field of enquiry, it would be seen as patently absurd.1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational Grammar, Cambridge: University Press, →ISBN, page 8. From the entry anthropologist
  • To do so would necessitate adding an 'infinitieth' element, which is absurd.1979, William Lane Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument, page 183. From the entry infinitieth
  • The statement made during the Second World War that “there are no atheists in foxholes” is absurd.1962, Hoxie Neale Fairchild, Religious Trends in English Poetry: 1880-1920: Gods of a Changing Poetry, Columbia University Press, page 378. From the entry foxhole
  • But 4 signs as an abbreve for 5 letters is rather absurd.1944, Carl Browne, William McDevitt, When Coxey's "Army" Marcht on Washington, 1894. From the entry abbreve
  • Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?1927, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 1, in Emily’s Quest, New York: Bantam, published 1983, page 9. From the entry afterglow
  • Even though people might like their science in cheap and absurd tabloid form, they did like it.1920, Rose Macaulay, “The Precisian at War with the World”, in Potterism: A Tragi-farcical Tract, London; Glasgow: W[illiam] Collins Sons…. From the entry tabloid
  • Dirk Stroeve cut such an absurd figure that I felt inclined to laugh.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 27”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC. From the entry cut a figure
  • It’s absurd, but I feel like the Jackdaw of Rheims.” ¶ She winced and bowed her head.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXXVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC…. From the entry excommunicate
  • And yet I remember that it was that absurd, emaciated, superannuated cab-horse which held my gaze.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC. From the entry superannuated
  • Any key to a work of imagination would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd.1902, Laurence Housman, “[Appendix: What is a Fairy Tale?] ‘Introduction’ to Gammer Grethel’s Fairy Tales”, in Michael Newton, editor…. From the entry leave someone out in the cold
  • Still, I am grateful that this Chinamaxxing debate has introduced me to the hilariously absurd logic of an aesthetic defection.2026 February 26, Coco Khan, “Britain and the US, calm down. The gen Z Chinamaxxers will do you no harm”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The…. From the entry Chinamaxxer
  • The notion that London will go cap in hand for a bailout too big for the IMF to deliver is absurd.2022 October 5, Yanis Varoufakis, “Is This the End of ‘Socialism for the Rich’?”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 15 Oct 2022. From the entry cap in hand
  • Roberts surely also realizes the Alito position is absurd.2022 March 20, Noah Feldman, “Scalia’s Ghost Is Haunting Conservative Justices”, in Bloomberg. From the entry Scalian
  • If that feels absurd, take a deep breath.2022 December 8, “The scourge of job-title inflation”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 16 Apr 2024. From the entry director of first impressions
  • She calls him a trickster in the sense that he is “homeless and nomadic, absurd, mischievous and hoaxy.”2020, Lily Woodruff, “Notes”, in Disordering the Establishment: Participatory Art and Institutional Critique in France, 1958–1981, Durham…. From the entry hoaxy
  • Many who disregard the medium are oblivious to the absurd amount of effort that some Poopers put into their projects.2019 March 20, Luke Dormehl, “YouTube Poop is punk rock for the internet age, and you probably don’t get it”, in Digital Trends. From the entry pooper
  • He “unalives” bad guys, sometimes for free, and this gives him a sense of purpose, even in an absurd world.2017, Nicolas Michaud, Jacob Thomas May, Deadpool and Philosophy: My Common Sense Is Tingling. From the entry unalive
  • And when whe woke again he reappeared in a plastic incubator wearing an absurd little knitted cap like an egg cosy.2017, Fiona Farrell, Decline and Fall on Savage Street, →ISBN, page 194. From the entry egg cosy
  • A Peter Pan collar might seem like a winsome, Alexa-Chung-at-Paris-fashion-week look in theory, but, trust me, you will look absurd.2016 September 2, Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian. From the entry Peter Pan collar
  • U can’t be sad when life is that absurd.2016, M. Suddain, Hunters & Collectors, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 89. From the entry happinessless
  • There can be something absurd or even melancholy about the open-plan minipalaces some middle-class Britons consider essential for civilised living.2015 November 9, Andy Beckett, “The economics of scale: how housing became Britain’s biggest political issue”, in The Guardian. From the entry minipalace
  • For whatever reason – the terrible animation or the absurd dialogue, most likely – these cutscenes are popular among poopers.2012 November 3, Brad Evan Rosen, “YouTube Poop: Meme as Art, Community – by “William A – YLT2012””, in Yale Law Tech. From the entry pooper
  • The chemistry of the myrmicine genus Solenopsis is so aberrant that it reduces generalizations about ant venoms to the absurd.2012, Murry Blum, Chemical Defenses of Arthropods, page 329. From the entry myrmicine
  • And then absurd notions roman-candled in his mind.2009, Julie Anne Long, Like No Other Lover:, page 6. From the entry roman-candle
  • I withers every word, a songly sound absurd.2008, T. A. Barron, Merlin's Dragon - Book 1. From the entry songly
  • Sierra Leone's post-dictator problems are almost absurd in their breadth.1999, Bruce Clifford Ross-Larson, Effective Writing, page 134. From the entry cancer

Meaning of absurd

  1. adjective Contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory; nonsensical; ridiculous; silly.
  2. adjective Inharmonious; dissonant.
  3. adjective Having no rational or orderly relationship to people's lives; meaningless; lacking order or value.

Full definition of absurd

Questions about absurd in a sentence

How do you use absurd in a sentence?
Absurd is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Face it. "It's raining cats and dogs" is an absurd yet evocative expression.”
What is a short sentence with absurd?
“And then absurd notions roman-candled in his mind.”
What does absurd mean?
Absurd means contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory; nonsensical; ridiculous; silly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: absurd (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use absurd in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/absurd. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.