inanity

From French inanité, from Latin inanitas, equivalent to inane +‎ -ity.

• enPR: ĭ-năn′-ĭt-ē, IPA^(key): /ɪˈnænɪti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: i‧nan‧i‧ty

inanity (countable and uncountable, plural inanities)

1. (uncountable) The property of being inane, of lacking material of interest or satisfaction, emptiness.
   • 2020, Alessandro Bausi, “7.5 Philological practices: Ethiopic”, in Philipp Roelli, editor, Handbook of Stemmatology: History, Methodology, Digital Approaches, De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 493:

     All those who criticise the inanity of the effort required by the stemmatic approach without clearly adopting a position of their own, do not, in my view, touch upon the core of the problem […]

2. Something that is inane.

   Working in any bureaucracy means being bedeviled by inanities daily.

   • 1895, Kenneth Graham, The Golden Age, London, page 5:

     It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would talk over our heads - during meals, for instance - of this or the other social or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of reality were among the importances of life.