Wiktionary

ludicrous

English edit

WOTD – 19 February 2008

Etymology edit

First attested in 1619. From Latin lūdicrus, from lūdō (“play”).

Pronunciation edit

Adjective edit

ludicrous (comparative more ludicrous, superlative most ludicrous)

  1. Idiotic or unthinkable, often to the point of being funny; amusing by being plainly incongruous or absurd.
    Synonyms: laughable, ridiculous, risible
    He made a ludicrous attempt to run for office.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter III, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
      Now all this was very fine, but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […] ; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.
    • 2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      […] That was a lone blemish on an otherwise tidy start by Poyet’s team – until, that is, the 12th minute, when Vergini produced a candidate for the most ludicrous own goal in Premier League history.
    • 2023 January 1, John Harris, quoting Jeremy Hunt, “The wreckage of Brexit is all around us. How long can our politicians indulge in denial?”, in The Guardian‎[2]:
      The government responds to such news with its usual ludicrous evasions: “I don’t deny there are costs to a decision like Brexit,” said Jeremy Hunt in November, “but there are also opportunities, and you have to see it in the round.”

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