nonentity
Americannoun
plural
nonentities-
a person or thing of no importance.
- Synonyms:
- nullity, zero, mediocrity, cipher, nobody
-
something that does not exist or exists only in imagination.
noun
-
an insignificant person or thing
-
a nonexistent thing
-
the state of not existing; nonexistence
Etymology
Origin of nonentity
Explanation
The noun nonentity refers to a person of no significance or importance. If you are a member of a sports team, but spend all your time sitting on the bench watching the rest of the team play, you will probably feel like a nonentity. Something that is an entity exists, and if you are considered a nonentity, you might as well not exist. A political nonentity has no power, and a social nonentity blends in with the wallpaper. Not only people are considered nonentities; groups or things can be nonentities too. If a nonentity beats a nationally ranked team, that's a real upset. The cereal brand that stays on the shelf and is ignored can also be considered a nonentity in the cereal market.
Vocabulary lists containing nonentity
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "N"
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Clean Getaway
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“What universal binomial denominations were his as Entity and Nonentity? Assumed by any or known to none he was Everyman or Noman.”
From New York Times • Jan. 25, 2018
Wild Bill was killed on the afternoon of Aug. 2, 1876 in the Number Ten Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, by Nonentity Jack McCall.
From Time Magazine Archive
The relative opposite of Being, considered as a summum genus, is Nonentity, or Nothing; and we have, now and then, occasion to consider and discuss things merely in contrast with Nonentity.
From A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive by Mill, John Stuart
Nonentity, non-en′ti-ti, n. want of entity or being: a thing not existing: a person of no importance.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various
Thus by degrees it passed into a Doubt, a Relation, some faint Possibility; and at last into a highly-probable Nonentity.
From Autobiography: Truth and Fiction Relating to My Life by Oxenford, John
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
