different between incoherence vs absurdity

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??nk???h????ns/

Noun

incoherence (countable and uncountable, plural incoherences)

1. (uncountable) The quality of being incoherent.
   1. The quality of not making logical sense or of not being logically connected.
      • 1599, Thomas Bilson, The Effect of Certaine Sermons Touching the Full Redemption of Mankind by the Death and Bloud of Christ Jesus, London: Walter Burre, p. 145,^[1]

        HE DESCENDED, signifieth a voluntarie motion, where as the bodie dead hath neither WILL nor MOTION. […] Though therefore this exposition cannot be charged with falsitie, for Christ was trulie buried; yet may it not bee endured by reason of […] the improprietie and incoherence of the worde, that a deade corps should descend […]

      • 1680, Henry Care, The History of the Damnable Popish Plot, London: B.R. et al., Chapter 23, Section 2, p. 327,^[2]

        […] the said Lane is prevailed with […] to prefer an Indictment against Dr. Oates, for attempting to commit upon him the horrid and detestable sin of Sodomy; but the Grand Jury, by reason of the incoherence and slightness of his Evidence, did not think fit to finde it, but returned an Ignoramus.

      • 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 70,^[3]

        Bulstrode went away now without anxiety as to what Raffles might say in his raving, which had taken on a muttering incoherence not likely to create any dangerous belief.

      • 1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, Book 2, Chapter 10,^[4]

        Lily’s head was so heavy with the weight of a sleepless night that the chatter of her companions had the incoherence of a dream.

      • 2002, Geoffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Book 2, p. 99,^[5]

        My grandfather, accustomed to the multifarious conjugations of ancient Greek verbs, had found English, for all its incoherence, a relatively simple tongue to master.

   2. (obsolete) The quality of not holding together physically.
      • 1669, Robert Boyle, “The History of Fluidity and Firmness,” Section 16, in Certain Physiological Essays and Other Tracts, London: Henry Herringman, p. 182,^[6]

        […] if it [Salt-Petre] be beaten into an impalpable powder, this powder, when it is pour’d out, will emulate a Liquor, by reason that the smallness and incoherence of the parts do both make them easie to be put into motion […]

2. (countable) Something incoherent; something that does not make logical sense or is not logically connected.
   • 1690, John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, London: Awnsham Churchill, Book 1, Chapter 3, p. 26,^[7]

     […] Incoherences in Matter and Suppositions, without Proofs put handsomly together in good Words and a plausible Stile, are apt to pass for strong Reason and good Sense, till they come to be look’d into with Attention.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 28,^[8]

     This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of.

3. (psychiatry) Thinking or speech that is so disorganized that it is essentially inapprehensible to others.

See also

• incoherency

Synonyms

• (quality of not making logical sense): unintelligibility

Antonyms

• coherence

Translations

Anagrams

• coinherence

English

Etymology

First attested around 1472. From Middle English absurdite, then from either Middle French absurdité, or from Late Latin absurditas (“dissonance, incongruity”), from Latin absurdus +? -itas (“quality, state, degree”). Equivalent to absurd +? -ity.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?s??d.?.ti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /æb?s?d.?.ti/, /æb?z?d.?.ti/, /?b?s?d.?.ti/, /?b?z?d.?.ti/

Noun

absurdity (countable and uncountable, plural absurdities)

1. (countable) That which is absurd; an absurd action; a logical contradiction. [First attested in the late 15^th century.]
2. (uncountable) The quality of being absurd or inconsistent with obvious truth, reason, or sound judgment. [First attested in the early 16^th century.]
3. (obsolete, rare) Dissonance. [Attested from around 1350 to 1470 until the late 17^th century.]

Translations

References