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y crawling up the battered walls. Knolles. Hath crawled into the favor of the king. Shak. Absurd opinions crawl about the world. South.

hand of a fool cutteth off the feet and drinketh damage. Prov. xxvi. 6. Great errors and absurdities many commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune. Bacon.

Anything that destroys beauty, grace, or propriety; irregularity; absurdity; gross deviation from other or the established laws of propriety; as, deformity in an edifice; deformity of character. Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities. Milton.

hed premises; -- opposed to Indirect, or Negative, demonstration (called also reductio ad absurdum), in which the correct conclusion is an inference from the demonstration that any other hypothesis must be incorrect.

pendent propositions as a consequence of the denial of the last; a species of reductio ad absurdum. Whately.

ge a theme as the philosophy of Locke. De Quincey. A rumor gained ground, -- and, however absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people. Hawthorne.

Indulging the vagaries of imagination; whimsical; full of absurd fancies; capricious; as, fantastic minds; a fantastic mistress.

Incomprehensible. The fathomless absurdity. Milton.

A person deficient in intellect; one who acts absurdly, or pursues a course contrary to the dictates of wisdom; one without judgment; a simpleton; a dolt. Extol not riches, then, the toil of fools. Milton. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. Franklin.

The practice of folly; the behavior of a fool; absurdity. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note, As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote. Shak.

Absurd; ridiculous; despicable; contemptible. A foolish figure he must make. Prior.

A foolish practice; an absurdity. The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. 1 Cor. i. 18.

Any absurd medley; a hotchpotch. The Mahometan religion, which, being a gallimaufry made up of many, partakes much of the Jewish. South.

hich they deposit their eggs; -- called also hair eel, hairworm, and hair snake, from the absurd, but common and widely diffused, notion that they are metamorphosed horsehairs.

[R.] Latimer. Logical impossibility, a condition or statement involving contradiction or absurdity; as, that a thing can be and not be at the same time. See Principle of Contradiction, under Contradiction.

nature of things, or by means at command; insuperably difficult under the circumstances; absurd or impracticable; not feasible. With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible. Matt. xix. 26. Without faith it is impossible to please him. Heb. xi. 6. Impossible quantity (Math.), an imagnary quantity.…

, or an inaccurate use of language. But every language has likewise its improprieties and absurdities. Johnson. Many gross improprieties, however authorized by practice, ought to be discarded. Swift.

Absurdity in argument ore narration; incoherence or irreconcilability in the parts of a statement, argument, or narration; that which is inconsistent. If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, and learning, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! Swift.…

f demonstration in which proof is given by showing that any other supposition involves an absurdity (reductio ad absurdum), or an impossibility; thus, one quantity may be proved equal to another by showing that it can be neither greater nor less. -- Indirect discourse. (Gram.) See Direct discourse, under Direct. -- I…

Silly; useless; nonsensical; absurd; foolish. To view attention as a special act of intelligence, and to distinguish it from consciousness, is utterly inept. Sir W. Hamilton.