fatuity

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French fatuité.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fəˈtjuːəti/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /fəˈtuːɪti/, [fəˈtuː.ɨ.ɾi]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

fatuity (countable and uncountable, plural fatuities)

1. Weakness or imbecility of mind; stupidity.
2. Something fatuous; a stupid idea or utterance.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 21, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     Like Joel Miller’s friend, the Senior Wrangler, who bowed to the audience from his box at the play, because he and the king happened to enter the theatre at the same time, only with a fatuity by no means so agreeable to himself, poor Arthur Pendennis felt perfectly convinced that all England would remark the absence of his name from the examination-lists, and talk about his misfortune.

Related terms

• fatuous

Translations

imbecility of mind; stupidity

• Arabic: اَلْبَلَاهَة (al-balāha)
• Bulgarian: глупост (bg) f (glupost)’
• Dutch: dwaasheid (nl) f
• Georgian: სისულელე (sisulele)
• Irish: baothántacht f, amadántacht f
• Latin: stultitia f
• Macedonian: глу́пост f (glúpost)

References

• “fatuity”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “fatuity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.