ludicrous

English

WOTD – 19 February 2008

Etymology

First attested in 1619. From Latin lūdicrus, from lūdō (“play”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈluː.dɪ.kɹəs/, /ˈljuː.dɪ.kɹəs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈluː.dɪ.kɹəs/

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Adjective

ludicrous (comparative more ludicrous, superlative most ludicrous)

1. Idiotic or unthinkable, often to the point of being funny; amusing by being plainly incongruous or absurd.

   Synonyms: laughable, ridiculous, risible

   He made a ludicrous attempt to run for office.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […] ; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

   • 2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     […] That was a lone blemish on an otherwise tidy start by Poyet’s team – until, that is, the 12th minute, when Vergini produced a candidate for the most ludicrous own goal in Premier League history.

   • 2023 January 1, John Harris, quoting Jeremy Hunt, “The wreckage of Brexit is all around us. How long can our politicians indulge in denial?”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     The government responds to such news with its usual ludicrous evasions: “I don’t deny there are costs to a decision like Brexit,” said Jeremy Hunt in November, “but there are also opportunities, and you have to see it in the round.”

Related terms

• (idiotic or unthinkable): ludicrously, ludicrousness

Translations

idiotic or unthinkable, often to the point of being funny

• Bulgarian: нелеп (bg) (nelep), смехотворен (smehotvoren)
• Catalan: ridícul (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 滑稽的 (zh) (huájī de), 荒唐的 (zh) (huāngtáng de)

• Cornish: hwarthus
• Finnish: älytön (fi), absurdi (fi), järjetön (fi), idioottimainen (fi), naurettava (fi), huvittava (fi)
• French: absurde (fr)
• Galician: ridículo m
• German: aberwitzig (de), absurd (de), lächerlich (de)
• Greek: σαχλός (el) (sachlós), γελοίος (el) (geloíos)

  Ancient: γελοῖος (geloîos)

• Hebrew: מגוחך (he) m (megoḥaḥ)
• Hungarian: nevetséges (hu)
• Indonesian: konyol (id)
• Italian: ridicolo (it)
• Maori: nenekara, kūrapa
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: latterlig (no)

• Plautdietsch: lachrich
• Polish: idiotyczny (pl) m, niedorzeczny (pl) m, absurdalny (pl) m, groteskowy (pl) m, bezsensowny (pl)
• Portuguese: ridículo (pt)
• Romanian: absurd (ro), ridicol (ro)
• Russian: неле́пый (ru) (nelépyj), абсу́рдный (ru) (absúrdnyj), смехотво́рный (ru) (smexotvórnyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: amaideach
• Slovak: absurdný (sk), chorý (sk) (slang)
• Spanish: irrisorio (es), ridículo (es), disparatado (es), descabellado (es)
• Swedish: löjlig (sv), skrattretande (sv), absurd (sv)
• Ukrainian: смішни́й (smišnýj), куме́дний (kumédnyj)
• Welsh: digrif (cy), chwerthinllyd (cy), ysmala