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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nonsense.

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

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈnɒn.səns/Received-Pronunciation/ˈnɑn.sɛns/Canada, General-American/ˈnɔn.səns/Australia

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

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

  2. An untrue statement.

    uncountable · usually

  3. That which is silly, illogical and lacks any meaning, reason or value; that which does not make sense.

    uncountable · usually

  4. Something foolish.

    uncountable · usually

  5. A type of poetry that contains strange or surreal ideas, as, for example, that written by Edward Lear.

    uncountable · usually

  6. A damaged DNA sequence whose products are not biologically active, that is, that does nothing.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Germanic *ne Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-Germanic *nainaz Proto-West Germanic *nain Old English nān Middle English non ▲ Old English nān Old English nān- Middle English non- English non- Proto-Indo-European *sent-der. Proto-Italic *sentiō Latin sentiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin sēnsusbor. Proto-Germanic *sinnaz Frankish *sinnbor. Vulgar Latin *sennus Old French sensbor. Middle English sense English sense English nonsense 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”).

verb/ˈnɒn.səns/Received-Pronunciation/ˈnɑn.sɛns/Canada, General-American/ˈnɔn.səns/Australia

  1. To make nonsense of;

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

  3. To joke around, to waste time

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Germanic *ne Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-Germanic *nainaz Proto-West Germanic *nain Old English nān Middle English non ▲ Old English nān Old English nān- Middle English non- English non- Proto-Indo-European *sent-der. Proto-Italic *sentiō Latin sentiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin sēnsusbor. Proto-Germanic *sinnaz Frankish *sinnbor. Vulgar Latin *sennus Old French sensbor. Middle English sense English sense English nonsense 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”).

adj/ˈnɒn.səns/Received-Pronunciation/ˈnɑn.sɛns/Canada, General-American/ˈnɔn.səns/Australia

  1. Nonsensical.

  2. Resulting from the substitution of a nucleotide in a sense codon, causing it to become a stop codon (not coding for an amino-acid).

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Germanic *ne Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-Germanic *nainaz Proto-West Germanic *nain Old English nān Middle English non ▲ Old English nān Old English nān- Middle English non- English non- Proto-Indo-European *sent-der. Proto-Italic *sentiō Latin sentiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin sēnsusbor. Proto-Germanic *sinnaz Frankish *sinnbor. Vulgar Latin *sennus Old French sensbor. Middle English sense English sense English nonsense 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”).

intj/ˈnɒn.səns/Received-Pronunciation/ˈnɑn.sɛns/Canada, General-American/ˈnɔn.səns/Australia

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

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Germanic *ne Proto-Indo-European *ís? Proto-Indo-European *h₁óynos Proto-Germanic *ainaz Proto-Germanic *nainaz Proto-West Germanic *nain Old English nān Middle English non ▲ Old English nān Old English nān- Middle English non- English non- Proto-Indo-European *sent-der. Proto-Italic *sentiō Latin sentiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin sēnsusbor. Proto-Germanic *sinnaz Frankish *sinnbor. Vulgar Latin *sennus Old French sensbor. Middle English sense English sense English nonsense 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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.