different between rigmarole vs nonsense

English

Alternative forms

• rigamarole

Etymology

From ragman roll (“long list; catalogue”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????m????l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /????m??o?l/

Noun

rigmarole (countable and uncountable, plural rigmaroles)

1. A long and complicated procedure that seems tiresome or pointless.

2. Nonsense; confused and incoherent talk.
   • 1847, Thomas De Quincey, Secret Societies (published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine)

     Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ch VII:

     While you are planting the seed, he cries -- "Drop it, drop it -- cover it up, cover it up -- pull it up, pull it up, pull it up." But this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster.

   • 1880, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, A Blighted Life, sxn 4:

     His reply did not even allude to the subject, but was a rigmarole about the weather; as if he had been writing to an idiot, who did not require a rational answer to any question they had asked.

   • 1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Valima Letters, ch XIX:

     In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and see his family in the bush.

   • 1910, A. E. W. Mason, At the Villa Rose, ch XVII:

     "Quite so," said Adèle comfortably. "Now let us be sensible and dine. We can amuse ourselves with mademoiselle's rigmaroles afterwards."

   • 1915, John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, ch 1:

     He seemed to brace himself for a great effort, and then started on the queerest rigmarole.

Translations

Adjective

rigmarole

1. Prolix; tedious.

Further reading

• “rigmarole”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

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