absurdity

[In Fr. absurd ité from Lat. absurd it as = di onance, incongruity.] 1. (Abstract): The quality or state of being flatly opposed to sound reason. "The gro absurdity of this motion was exposed by sever a eminent members."-Macaulay: Hist. Eng., ch. xí 2. (Concrete): Anything which is opposed to reason. "It is not like the story of Numa and Pythagoras, a chronological absurdity." -Lewis: Credibility of the Early Rom. Hist . , ch. xi., § 28. In this sense it has a plural: "A bewildering, inextricable jungle of delusions, confusions, falsehoods, and absurdities , covering the whole field of life."Carlyle: Heroes and Hero Worship, lect. i. ab-surd-lỹ, adv. [ABSURD.] In a manner wholly at variance with reason, in an extremely silly manner. "To gaze at his own splendour, and to exalt Absurdly, not his office, but himself." Cowper: Task , ii. 548. tab-surd-ne , s. [ABSURD.] Absurdity. "The folly and absurdne whereof I shall not endeavour to expose."-Dr. Cave: Sermon (1675). abs-trû'se-ne , s . [ABSTRUSE.) The quality of being remote from ordinary apprehension, ab-surd-ŭm (Reductio ad). [See AB- difficulty of being understood. it is the abstrusene of what is taught in them (the Scriptures that makes them almost inevitably so [obscure]"- Boyle on the Scriptures . abs-trû's-i-ty, s. [ABSTRUSE.] 1. The quality or state of being abstruse. 2. That which is abstruse. antipathies, sympathies, and the occult abstrusities of sof things."-Browne: Vulgar Errours. ǎb-sû'me, v.t. [Lat. absumo = to take away: abfrom; sumo to take.] 1. To take away from. "And from their eyes all light did quite absume." Wirgil, by Vicars (1632). 2. To bring to an end by a continual waste; to consume. if it had burned part after part, the whole Sir M. Hale: Origination of Man. must needs be absumed in a portion of time." ǎb-sûmed, pa . par. & a. [ABSUME.] ab-sû'm-ing, pr . par . [ABSUME.] ab-sump'-tion, s. [Lat. absumptio = a consuming: ab = from; sumptio = a taking; sumo to take.] 1. The act, operation, or proce of consuming. 2. The state of being consumed; extinction, non-existence. ( Applied to things material and immaterial .) "Christians abhorred this way of obsequies, and though they stick not to give their bodies to be burnt in their lives, detested that mode after death; affect ing rather a deposit ure than absumption ."-Sir T. Browne: Urne Burial, Burial, ch. 1. "That total defect or absumption of religion which is naturally incident to the profaner sort of men."Dr. Gauden: Eccl. Ang. Suspiria (1659).