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ludicrous

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 19 February 2008

Etymology

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    Learned borrowing from Latin lūdicrus. First attested in 1619.

    Pronunciation

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    Adjective

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    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.
      • 2008 November 28, Graham Linehan, “Are We Not Men?”, in The IT Crowd, season 3, episode 2, spoken by Maurice Moss (Richard Ayoade):
        Awright, Harry? Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
      • 2014 October 18, Paul Doyle, “Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 October 2026:
        […] 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 Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 October 2026:
        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.”
    2. (obsolete) Playful, fun, entertaining.
      • 1598, Francis Thynne, Francis Thynne's Animaduersions upon Speight's first Edition of Chaucers Workes‎[3]:
        […] to auert their conceits from the consideration of serious, and grauer matters, by feeding their humors, and delighting their fansies with such fabulous and ludicrous toyes.

    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    References

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