irrelevance

American  

[ih-rel-uh-vuhns] / ɪˈrɛl ə vəns /

noun

1. the quality or condition of being irrelevant.

2. an irrelevant thing, act, etc.

---

Etymology

Origin of irrelevance

1840–50; ir- ² + relevance ( def. ); see relevant ( def. )

Explanation

Irrelevance represents what is NOT at all important to what’s going on right now. Anything that distracts you from this sentence is clearly an example of irrelevance. The Latin root word for irrelevance is relevare, which means “raising up.” The prefix ir- means “not,” therefore if a situation does not relate to or raise your interest, it’s irrelevant. In a courtroom, lawyers who lose sight of their case argue about irrelevances, and your sister speaks with irrelevance when she wakes you up to talk about rainbows. It’s always best to focus on important things, but irrelevance now and then won’t kill you.

Example Sentences

"And the US threatens to relegate the organisation to even greater irrelevance if it doesn't get what it wants," she told AFP.

From Barron's • Mar. 27, 2026

Boatwright would be wise to heed this history and either take Chipotle into new frontiers or prepare for its inevitable irrelevance.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 19, 2026

PayPal now has “institutional irrelevance among top merchants,” he wrote in a Tuesday blog post.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 4, 2026

The difficulty is that these and other summaries are often obscured by patches bordering on irrelevance.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 16, 2025

Until that time, everything was shadowy irrelevance and he was afraid of nothing.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan