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incongruous

adjective

Simple meaning

Not similar or congruent.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihngkawngroouhs

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪŋˈkɔŋɹuəs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Not similar or congruent; not matching or fitting in.

  2. mathematics

    Of two numbers, with respect to a third, such that their difference can not be divided by it without a remainder.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Not similar or congruent; not matching or fitting in.

Used this way, incongruous is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • unfitting , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use incongruous

  • “A plan incongruous with reason.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

incongruous elementssomewhat incongruousrather incongruousseemed incongruousincongruous mixtureincongruous figureincongruous combinationincongruous situation

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: not similar or congruent

unfittingRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.