ninnery

plural ninneries

1. countableuncommonuncountableNinnyish behavior; foolery; foolishness.

   Those loose “Arabian tales” of the great border-cities, were but profane ninnery to their stern natural judgments.

   1888, Charles M. Doughty, “Life in the Wandering Village” (chapter IX), in Travels in Arabia Deserta, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, page 263

   3 more examples

   I wasn't surprised to find him virulently anti-clerical, and was rather pleased when he told me that he thought that “all theology was sophisticated ninnery”.

   1984 [1982], H. A. Williams, Someday I'll Find You, Mitchell Beazley, →ISBN, page 90

   She tries to emotionalise her relation with Lily, but Lily isn’t having any. The discovery that Lily, behind all her romantic ninnery, is hard as bricks.

   2004, Peter Parker, Isherwood: A Life Revealed, Random House, →ISBN, page 130

   Who could take them seriously? Ridiculous, the two comedians reparteed. The arguments were common nonsense, the theme was a ninnery. And an entire day passed.

   Summer 2014, Mia Couto, “War of the Clowns”, in Eric M. B. Becker, transl., The Massachusetts Review, volume 55, number 2, page 246