incongruity

English

Etymology

From Middle French incongruité, from Medieval Latin incongruitās, from Latin incongruus.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnkɑŋˈɡɹuɪti/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnkɒŋˈɡɹuːɪti/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: in‧con‧gru‧i‧ty

Noun

incongruity (countable and uncountable, plural incongruities)

1. The state of being incongruous, or lacking congruence.

   Synonyms: incongruence, incongruency

   Antonyms: congruence, congruency, congruity

   • 1983, James C. H. Shen, “Rejoining the Government”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally‎, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 42:

     I was told that the Australian Government had had to send my name to London before agreeing to my appointment. My credentials were actually addressed to Her Majesty, despite the fact that the Government of the United Kingdom had recognized the Chinese Communist regime in Peking as early as 1950. No one, however, seemed to notice the incongruity of such an arrangement.

2. An instance or point of disagreement

   Synonyms: dissimilarity, discrepancy, inconsistency

3. A thing that is incongruous.

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “incongruity”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.