different between nonsense vs incoherence

English

Alternative forms

• nonsence (archaic)
• non-sense

Etymology

From non- (“no, none, lack of”) +? sense, from c. 1610. Compare the semantically similar West Frisian ûnsin (“nonsense”), Dutch onzin (“nonsense”), German Unsinn (“nonsense”), English unsense (“nonsense”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?n?ns?ns/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?n?ns?ns/
• Hyphenation: non?sense
• Rhymes: -?ns?ns, -?ns?ns

Noun

nonsense (usually uncountable, plural nonsenses)

1. Letters or words, in writing or speech, that have no meaning or pattern or seem to have no meaning.

2. An untrue statement.

3. That which is silly, illogical and lacks any meaning, reason or value; that which does not make sense.
4. Something foolish.
5. (literature) A type of poetry that contains strange or surreal ideas, as, for example, that written by Edward Lear.
6. (biology) A damaged DNA sequence whose products are not biologically active, that is, that does nothing.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:nonsense
• Synonyms: falsehood, lie, untruth, absurdity, rubbish, tosh
• Synonyms: absurdity, silliness, contradiction, stupidity, unreasoning

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

nonsense (third-person singular simple present nonsenses, present participle nonsensing, simple past and past participle nonsensed)

1. To make nonsense of;
2. To attempt to dismiss as nonsense; to ignore or belittle the significance of something; to render unimportant or puny.

   Synonyms: belittle, dismiss, pooh-pooh, rubbish
3. (intransitive) To joke around, to waste time

Adjective

nonsense (comparative more nonsense, superlative most nonsense)

1. Nonsensical.
2. (biochemistry) Resulting from the substitution of a nucleotide in a sense codon, causing it to become a stop codon (not coding for an amino-acid).

Translations

Interjection

nonsense

1. An emphatic rejection of something one has just heard and does not believe or agree with.

Translations

See also

• missense
• non-sense

Finnish

Noun

nonsense

1. nonsense (type of poetry)

Declension

Mauritian Creole

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n?ns?ns/

Etymology

From English nonsense.

Noun

nonsense

1. nonsense

Alternative forms

• nonsens

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