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STUPIDITY
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A stupid mistake
Synonyms:
betise; folly; foolishness; imbecility; stupidity
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("stupidity" is a kind of...):
error; fault; mistake (a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A poor ability to understand or to profit from experience
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("stupidity" is a kind of...):
inability (lack of ability (especially mental ability) to do something)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "stupidity"):
denseness; dumbness; slow-wittedness (the quality of being mentally slow and limited)
dullness; obtuseness (the quality of being slow to understand)
backwardness; mental retardation; retardation; slowness; subnormality (lack of normal development of intellectual capacities)
craziness; folly; foolishness; madness (the quality of being rash and foolish)
vacuousness (indicative of or marked by mental vacuity and an absence of ideas)
Antonym:
intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)
Derivation:
stupid (lacking or marked by lack of intellectual acuity)
stupid (lacking intelligence)
Context examples:
I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I was in the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed I rushed to the mirror.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
The theatre or the rooms, where he was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough for the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the elegant stupidity of private parties, in which they were getting more and more engaged; and Anne, wearied of such a state of stagnation, sick of knowing nothing, and fancying herself stronger because her strength was not tried, was quite impatient for the concert evening.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
The hot weather made him indolent, and he had shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke's patience to the utmost, displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
My stupidity was abominable, for here we have all the advantage of what I saw at Ecclesford; and it is so useful to have anything of a model!
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Jim was a plumber's apprentice whose weak chin and hedonistic temperament, coupled with a certain nervous stupidity, promised to take him nowhere in the race for bread and butter.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Forgive her stupidity.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Colonel Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her; and as she would liked to have believed this change the effect of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself seriously to work to find it out.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Both were agreed that the monsters were practically brainless, that there was no room for reason in their tiny cranial cavities, and that if they have disappeared from the rest of the world it was assuredly on account of their own stupidity, which made it impossible for them to adapt themselves to changing conditions.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The indignities of stupidity, and the disappointments of selfish passion, can excite little pity.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
