theater of the absurd
noun
Simple meaning
Plays stressing the irrational or illogical aspects of life, usually to show that modern life is pointless.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
theeuhteruhvthuhuhbsurdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈθiətɚˈʌvðəəbˈsɝd
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Plays stressing the irrational or illogical aspects of life, usually to show that modern life is pointless
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Plays stressing the irrational or illogical aspects of life, usually to show that modern life is pointless
Used this way, theater of the absurd 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
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.