jejunity
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
Noun: 1. The quality of lacking nutritive value: This meaning refers to something being insubstantial, meager, or lacking nourishing content, often used in a figurative sense for ideas or writing. 2. The quality of being vapid and unsophisticated: This meaning refers to something being dull, boring, uninteresting, or intellectually shallow.
Usage Examples
- Referring to lack of substance:
- The jejunity of the report was criticized; it contained many words but little actual data or insight.
- Despite its length, the essay's jejunity left readers feeling unsatisfied and uninformed.
- Referring to dullness or lack of sophistication:
- The jejunity of the conversation made the dinner party seem to last for hours.
- Critics panned the film for its jejunity, calling its plot predictable and its characters one-dimensional.
Advanced Usage
- Figurative use for intellectual content: The term is most commonly used in formal or literary contexts to criticize written or spoken material as being intellectually empty or simplistic.
- The professor lamented the jejunity of modern political discourse.
Variants and Related Words
- Jejune (adjective): The adjective form.
- a jejune argument (an unsophisticated or naive argument)
- a jejune diet (a meager or insufficient diet)
- Jejunely (adverb): In a jejune manner.
- Jejuneness (noun): A less common synonym for .
Synonyms
- For lack of nutritive value/insubstantiality: Meagerness, poverty, thinness, barrenness.
- For being vapid/unsophisticated: Dullness, banality, vapidity, insipidity, shallowness, naivety.
Notes on Meaning
The two core meanings of jejunity are closely related, both describing a fundamental lack of richness, substance, or maturity. The first meaning (lacking nutritive value) often extends metaphorically to the second (lacking intellectual or interesting content). It is a formal word typically used in critical analysis.
Noun
- quality of lacking nutritive value
- the quality of being vapid and unsophisticated