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Webster 1913 Edition


Incongruous

In-con′gru-ous

,
Adj.
[L.
incongruus
. See
In-
not, and
Congruous
.]
Not congruous; reciprocally disagreeing; not capable of harmonizing or readily assimilating; inharmonious; inappropriate; unsuitable; not fitting; inconsistent; improper;
as, an
incongruous
remark;
incongruous
behavior, action, dress, etc.
Incongruous mixtures of opinions.”
I. Taylor.
“Made up of incongruous parts.”
Macaulay.
Incongruous
denotes that kind of absence of harmony or suitableness of which the taste and experience of men takes cognizance.
C. J. Smith.
In-con′gru-ous-ly
,
adv.
In-con′gru-ous-ness
,
Noun.

Webster 1828 Edition


Incongruous

INCON'GRUOUS

,
Adj.
[L incongruus.] Not congruous; unsuitable; not fitting; inconsistent; improper. The dress of a seaman on a judge, would be deemed incongruous with his character and station.

Definition 2024


incongruous

incongruous

English

Adjective

incongruous (comparative more incongruous, superlative most incongruous)

  1. Not similar or congruent; not matching or fitting in.
    • 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette, ch. 34:
      [P]erhaps he thought me, with my basket of summer fruit, and my lack of the dignity age confers, an incongruous figure in such a scene.
    • 1906, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, Chapter 1
      Ona was blue-eyed and fair, while Jurgis had great black eyes with beetling brows, and thick black hair that curled in waves about his ears—in short, they were one of those incongruous and impossible married couples with which Mother Nature so often wills to confound all prophets.
    • 1912, Jack London, A Son Of The Sunm ch. 1:
      Ardent suns had likewise tanned his face till it was swarthy as a Spaniard's. The yellow mustache appeared incongruous in the midst of such swarthiness.
    • 2014, Daniel Taylor, England and Wayne Rooney see off Scotland in their own back yard (in The Guardian, 18 November 2014)
      For a few moments England toyed with the idea of making it a more difficult night than necessary. Scotland had scored a goal that seemed incongruous to the rest of their performance and, briefly, a fiercely partisan crowd sensed an improbable comeback.
  2. (mathematics) Of two numbers, with respect to a third, such that their difference can not be divided by it without a remainder.
    20 and 25 are incongruous with respect to 4.

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