6 October 2016
fatuous
[fach-oo-uh s]
adjective
1. foolish or inane, especially in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly.
2. unreal; illusory.
Origin of fatuous
Latin
1625-1635; < Latin fatuus silly, foolish, idiotic; see -ous
Related forms
fatuously, adverb
fatuousness, noun
Synonyms
1. dense, dull, dim-witted. See foolish.
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for fatuous
Contemporary Examples
“They obliterated it with some fatuous piece of commentary about something else,” Gough told the Guardian.
Escalating Row Over BBC Coverage of Jubilee
Tom Sykes
June 6, 2012
During one break in the filming, he was a fatuous British director, “exploring the essence of what we call cinema!”
The Stacks: Robin Williams, More Than A Shtick Figure
Joe Morgenstern
August 15, 2014
I also won’t repeat, or defend him against, all the fatuous charges leveled against him.
Hagel And The Neo-McCarthyites
Bernard Avishai
December 25, 2012
He was cleverer than most everyone else, but he envied the carefree affluence of the rich and fatuous.
The Magazine King
Harold Evans
April 30, 2010
Historical Examples
One of the chappies burst into a fatuous laugh once more at this remark.
Hilda Wade
Grant Allen
We have to love before we can serve, but it is fatuous to love blindly.
Child and Country
Will Levington Comfort
But it must not attempt in fatuous recklessness to make over humanity on the pattern of absolute equality.
Right Above Race
Otto Hermann Kahn
He passed from fatuous credulity to equally fatuous distrust.
The Argonauts of North Liberty
Bret Harte
He was watching the operation with what he began to fear was fatuous imbecility.
The Crusade of the Excelsior
Bret Harte
Anagram
a tofu us
Today’s quote
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
― Alvin Toffler
On this day
6 October 1961 – President John F. Kennedy advises Americans to build fall-out shelters, as Cold War paranoia continues to grow.
6 October 1966 – LSD, a synthetic hallucinogenic drug, is declared illegal in the United States.
6 October 1978 – death of Johnny O’Keefe, Australian rock and roll legend. Known as J.O.K. or ‘The Wild One’. Born 19 January 1935.