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Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A person regarded as being of no importance or significance.
- noun Nonexistence.
- noun Something that does not exist or that exists only in the imagination.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Non-existence; the negation of being.
- A thing between being and nothing; a negation, relation, or ens rationis.
- A figment; a nothing.
- Nothingness; insignificance; futility.
- A person or thing of no consequence or importance: as, he is a mere nonentity.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Nonexistence; the negation of being.
- noun A thing not existing.
- noun colloq. A person or thing of little or no account; an unimportant person; -- usually used as a disparaging term.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun an
unimportant orinsignificant person
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person of no influence
- noun the state of not existing
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Joe McElderry – Shuddering nonentity from the north-east.
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“Without the cathedral, Kingsbridge would be nothing, the priory would sink back into obscurity, and Philip would once again be a nonentity, which is what he deserves.”
The Pillars of the Earth FOLLETT, Ken 1989
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His nonentity was a source of regret to us: we lamented to see a tall handsome youth, destined to rule over his fellow-men, trembling at the eight of a horse, and wasting his time in the game of hide-and-seek, or at leap-frog and whose whole information consisted in knowing his prayers, and in saying grace before and after meals.
Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon Various
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What the rationalist calls nonentity is the substrate and locus of all ideas, having the obstinate reality of matter, the crushing irrationality of existence itself; and one who attempts to override it becomes to that extent an irrelevant rhapsodist, dealing with thin after-images of being.
The Life of Reason George Santayana 1907
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He has been brought up to understand that to be a Duke is not to be a titled nonentity or a pampered _roué_, but to be one whom Providence has blessed with an opportunity of benefiting and watching over the welfare of those less fortunate than himself in the world's good gifts.
A Bid for Fortune or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta Guy Boothby 1886
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His nonentity was a source of regret to us: we lamented to see s tall handsome youth, destined to rule over his fellow-men, trembling at the eight of a horse, and wasting his time in the game of hide-and - seek, or at leap-frog and whose whole information consisted in knowing his prayers, and in saying grace before and after meals.
The Memoirs of Napoleon Bourrienne, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de 1836
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His nonentity was a source of regret to us: we lamented to see a tall handsome youth, destined to rule over his fellow-men, trembling at the eight of a horse, and wasting his time in the game of hide-and-seek, or at leap-frog and whose whole information consisted in knowing his prayers, and in saying grace before and after meals.
Memoirs of Napoleon — Complete Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne 1801
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His nonentity was a source of regret to us: we lamented to see s tall handsome youth, destined to rule over his fellow-men, trembling at the eight of a horse, and wasting his time in the game of hide-and - seek, or at leap-frog and whose whole information consisted in knowing his prayers, and in saying grace before and after meals.
Memoirs of Napoleon — Volume 05 Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne 1801
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Oh, and I'm such a "nonentity" that this thread is STILL going on, I see.
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At strategy sessions of the Bush-Cheney campaign he was a "nonentity," recalled one Bush adviser.
INNER CIRCLE 2007
Related Words
synonyms (102)
Words with the same meaning
- Middle America
- Milquetoast
- a nobody
- a nothing
- absence
- baby
- big baby
- bourgeoisie
- burgherdom
- chicken
- cipher
- common man
- crybaby
- deprivation
- doormat
- dud
- dull tool
- dummy
- emptiness
- figurehead
- fourth-rater
- gutless wonder
- hollow man
- insignificancy
- invertebrate
- jackstraw
- jellyfish
- lay figure
- lightweight
- little fellow
- little guy
- man of straw
- mediocrity
- meek soul
- middle class
- middle order
- middle orders
- milksop
- mollycoddle
- namby-pamby
- nebbish
- negation
- negativeness
- negativity
- nihility
- no great shakes
- no prize
- nobody
- nobody one knows
- nobody special
- nonbeing
- nonexistence
- nonoccurrence
- nonreality
- nonsubsistence
- not-being
- nothing
- nothing special
- nothingness
- nullity
- obscurity
- pansy
- pantywaist
- pip-squeak
- punk
- puppet
- pushover
- runt
- rushlight
- sad sack
- scrub
- second-rater
- shrimp
- silent majority
- sissy
- small
- small beer
- small fry
- small potato
- small potatoes
- softling
- softy
- sop
- squirt
- squit
- suburbia
- thing of naught
- third-rater
- tinhorn
- trifle
- unactuality
- unreality
- vacancy
- vacuity
- vacuum
- void
- weak sister
- weakling
- whiffet
- whippersnapper
- zero
- zilch
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