fatuous

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It's that kind of fatuous, spoiled-brat ignorance that made Auschwitz possible.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. adjective Foolish or silly, especially in a smug or self-satisfied way: "'Don't you like the poor lonely bachelor?' he yammered in a fatuous way” (Sinclair Lewis). See Synonyms at foolish.

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Examples (50)

  • If you oppose the war -- why are you indulging in this fatuous, sobbing, sentimental bullshit that is a masquerade for REALLY taking an anti-war stance -- an anti-war stance you simply can't take, because to do so, would run you smack up against two politically problematic walls: —  World of SL
  • It is impractical, fatuous, and irrational when folks advocate for technology as an answer to the problems we are facing with exponential growth and the quest for sustainability. —  Countercurrents.org
  • The new U.S. "war on terror" was rhetorically bent on dismissing the concept of peacetime as a fatuous mirage. —  Signs of the Times
  • The new US "war on terror" was rhetorically bent on dismissing the concept of peacetime as a fatuous mirage. —  t r u t h o u t
  • A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others, still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover suffcient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community. —  BlueOregon
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

idiotic ·  childish ·  foolish ·  naive ·  smug ·  irrational ·  maudlin ·  superstitious ·  thoughtless ·  condescend ·  egotistical ·  insolent
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From Latin fatuus.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Spanish Portuguese Italian fatuo, from Latin fatuus, foolish, simple, silly, rarely insipid, tasteless (hence, through this sense, ult. English fade, a., q. v.); as a noun, fatuus, feminine fatua, a fool, a professional jester.
 

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/ˈfætʃjuəs/
by American Heritage

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