nonsense

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Letters or words, in writing or speech, that have no meaning or pattern or seem to have no meaning.

   After my father had a stroke, every time he tried to talk, it sounded like nonsense.

2. 2
   noun

   An untrue statement.

   You have seen it for yourselves in the play by Aristophanes, where Socrates goes whirling round, proclaiming that he is walking on air, and uttering a great deal of other nonsense about things of which I know nothing whatsoever.

3. 3
   noun

   Something foolish.

   and central banks lend vast sums against marshmallow backed securities, or other nonsenses creative bankers dreamed up.

4. 4
   verb

   To make nonsense of;

   At the Haymarket all this is nonsensed by an endeavor to steer between Mr. Stanley Weyman's rights as author of the story and the prescriptive right of the leading actor to fight popularly and heroically against heavy odds.

5. 5
   verb

   To attempt to dismiss as nonsense; to ignore or belittle the significance of something; to render unimportant or puny.

   "They haven't nonsensed these workouts. They've taken them and used them very well. I didn't know how they'd respond, but they've responded."

6. 6
   verb

   To joke around, to waste time

   When he meant "go and get one" he said to go and get one, with no nonsensing around about "liking" to get one.

7. 7
   intj

   An emphatic rejection of something one has just heard and does not believe or agree with.

   The operators present this as a passenger benefit by claiming it provides early notice. Nonsense! This just means that passengers can't find any information about the train they thought they were catching. It simply disappears.

8. 8
   adj

   having no intelligible meaning

Etymology

From non- (“no, none, lack of”) + sense, from c. 1610. Compare the semantically similar West Frisian ûnsin (“nonsense”), Dutch onzin (“nonsense”), German Unsinn (“nonsense”), English unsense (“nonsense”).