Meanings
- rareuncountablerare spelling of non-nonsense.
> [snip nonsense] / [nonnonsense reinstated]
2002 May 8, Robert Myers, “US-TX-Austin: Senior Software Engineer (19471312)”, in austin.jobs (Usenet)5 more examples
This is a highly technical term that is used by philosophers to talk nonsense, and I didn’t think what he was saying was at all nonsense. But I was not quite sure what kind of nonnonsense it was!
1968, Psychological Issues, volume 6, page 127Rene has played wonderfully a nonnonsense security chief, comic foil to Shirmerman but has also convincingly played a betrayer.
1998 February 16, Daniel Tropea, “DS9's real strength - imho”, in alt.tv.star-trek.ds9 (Usenet)A defective sentence like / *Shakespeare writed gooder than Fletcher / has a recoverable unified meaning despite its ungrammaticality (in each case morphotactic to lexical realization errors). / With this reservation, what distinguishes nonsense from nonnonsense?
2001, Richard Gaskin, editor, Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy, Routledge, published 2002, →ISBNI have picked up this Teach Yourself Astrology by Jeff Mayo. It seems like a good nonnonsense book.
2001 July 13, Deb Shanker, “Vajpayee`s stars brighter: astrologer”, in soc.culture.indian (Usenet)If you should have forgotten, here comes a remainder: Your idiotic nonsense is idiotic nonsense, and nonnonsense was, by and large, not to be seen from you during the last 10 years.
2014 September 29, Ralf Bader, “Irrational numbers have no representation as decimal fractions.”, in sci.math (Usenet)
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*né
- Proto-Germanic*ne
- Proto-Indo-European*ís?
- Proto-Indo-European*h₁óynos
- Proto-Germanic*ainaz
- Proto-Germanic*nainaz
- Proto-West Germanic*nain
- Old Englishnān
- Middle Englishnon
- Old Englishnān
- Old Englishnān-
- Middle Englishnon-
- Englishnon-
- Proto-Indo-European*sent-
- Proto-Italic*sentiō
- Latinsentiō
- Latinsēnsu
- Proto-Germanic*sinnaz
- Frankish*sinn
- Vulgar Latin*sennus
- Old Frenchsens
- Middle Englishsense
- Englishsense
- Englishnonsense
- Englishnonnonsense
Cite this entry
nonnonsense. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonnonsense
“nonnonsense.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonnonsense. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nonnonsense,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nonnonsense.
Source: nonnonsense on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.