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Absurd vs Zany - What's the difference?

absurd | zany |

As adjectives the difference between absurd and zany

is that absurd is absurd while zany is unusual and bizarre in a funny, comical way; outlandish; clownish.

As a noun zany is

(obsolete) a fool or clown especially one whose business on the stage was to imitate foolishly the actions of the principal clown.

absurd

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory; nonsensical; ridiculous; silly.
  • * 1591 , (William Shakespeare), , V-iv
    • This proffer is absurd and reasonless.
  • * ca. 1710 , (Alexander Pope)
    • This phrase absurd to call a villain great
  • * , chapter=17
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“Perhaps it is because I have been excommunicated. It's absurd , but I feel like the Jackdaw of Rheims.” ¶ She winced and bowed her head. Each time that he spoke flippantly of the Church he caused her pain.}}
  • (obsolete) Inharmonious; dissonant.
  • Having no rational or orderly relationship to people's lives; meaningless; lacking order or value.
  • * (rfdate) Adults have condemned them to live in what must seem like an absurd universe. - Joseph Featherstone
  • Dealing with absurdism.

    • Usage notes

    * More and most absurd are the preferred or more common form of the comparable, as opposed to absurder and absurdest. * Among the synonyms: ** Irrational is the weakest, denoting that which is plainly inconsistent with the dictates of sound reason; as, an irrational course of life. ** Foolish rises higher, and implies either a perversion of that faculty, or an absolute weakness or fatuity of mind; as, foolish enterprises. ** Absurd rises still higher, denoting that which is plainly opposed to received notions of propriety and truth; as, an absurd man, project, opinion, story, argument, etc. ** Preposterous rises still higher, and supposes an absolute inversion'' in the order of things; or, in plain terms, a "putting of the cart before the horse;" as, a ''preposterous'' suggestion, ''preposterous'' conduct, a ''preposterous regulation or law.

    Synonyms

    * foolish, irrational, ridiculous, preposterous, inconsistent, incongruous, ludicrous * See also

    Derived terms

    * absurdly, absurdity * Absurdistan

    Noun

    (en noun) (Absurdism)
  • (obsolete) An absurdity.
  • (philosophy) The opposition between the human search for meaning in life and the inability to find any; the state or condition in which man exists in an irrational universe and his life has no meaning outside of his existence.

    • Usage notes

    * (philosophy) Absurd is sometimes preceded by the word the .

    Derived terms

    * theatre of the absurd

    References

    * * ----

    zany

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • unusual and bizarre in a funny, comical way; outlandish; clownish
  • ludicrously or incongruously comical

    • Synonyms

    * wacky

    Derived terms

    * zaniness

    Noun

    (zanies)
  • (obsolete) A fool or clown. Especially one whose business on the stage was to imitate foolishly the actions of the principal clown
  • * John Donne
    • Then write that I may follow, and so be / Thy echo, thy debtor, thy foil, thy zany .
  • * Alexander Pope
    • Preacher at once, and zany of thy age.
  • * 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4
    • So there he caught me lying like a zany on the ground. You may guess I stood at attention soon enough, but told him I was looking at the founds to see if they wanted underpinning from the floods.

    References

    * 1949', John Dover Wilson (compiler), ' Life in Shakespeare's England. A Book of Elizabethan Prose , Cambridge at the University Press. 1st ed. 1911, 2nd ed. 1913, 8th reprint. In Glossary and Notes