irrationality
Americannoun
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irrationalities
plural
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the quality or condition of being irrational.
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an irrational, illogical, or absurd action, thought, etc.
noun
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the state or quality of being irrational
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irrational thought, action, or behaviour
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of irrationality
First recorded in 1560–70; irrational + -ity
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.
See Examples For:
“Today’s lawsuit continues the absurdity and irrationality that the industry has come to expect from the defunct organization formerly known as the HFPA.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Options remain the best way to monetize investor irrationality and emotional dysregulation.
From Barron's ● Mar. 11, 2026
Bennett argued presciently that by kowtowing to radicals, “a great university was brought low by the very forces which modern universities came into being to oppose: ignorance, irrationality and intimidation.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026
It’s simply a matter of taking advantage of structural market irrationality.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 26, 2025
I sometimes wonder how much irrationality in the world has been excused by the nonsensical saying “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” a corruption of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s remark about “a foolish consistency.”
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
But they can newly explain so many of the irrationalities that are directly a product of the digital age.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
Well, all the reading I do is sort of aimed at the general mission of being more compassionate toward other people's irrationalities and skeptical of my own.
From Salon ● Apr. 9, 2024
In this way, Kirsch accepts the standard story about modernity: that ours is an era of “disenchantment” in which the old myths and irrationalities have been crushed under the boot heel of enlightened techno-science.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2023
The crux of the problem, as Cowen points out, is that it’s nearly impossible to understand irrationalities without taking advantage of them.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 27, 2012
It was affirmed that, to a degree of more than skeptic scorn, Bannadonna had been without sympathy for any of the vain-glorious irrationalities of his time.
From The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
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.
