as in blunder
a foolish act or idea
writing a sequel to a Jane Austen novel must be regarded as a literary bêtise of the highest order
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bêtise
Noun
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Noem’s dissmissal comes after she was berated by lawmakers on Capitol Hill over a series of disastrous blunders by her department, including the killings of two American citizens by border patrol agents in Minneapolis and apparent attempts by DHS to stifle investigations into the shootings.—
Emily Zemler,
Rolling Stone,
6 Mar. 2026 -
The infielder was mocked on social media after a head-scratching baserunning blunder against his former team, the Miami Marlins, in August.—
Jackson Thompson,
FOXNews.com,
6 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Attached to it is a video of Andrea Yates, the real Texas woman who drowned her five children amid an episode of postpartum psychosis and was found not guilty by reason of insanity, per the New York Times.—
Randall Colburn,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Mar. 2026
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To punish her company is an act of insanity.—
Maer Roshan,
HollywoodReporter,
10 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Unlike its sibling concepts of dumbness and idiocy, stupidity isn’t really a personality trait.—
Jonny Thomson,
Big Think,
11 Feb. 2026
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Harry and Finis refused to play Jack Donahoe’s game of commenting on every idiocy that came across their desks.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
27 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The latest addition to the genre, AMC’s The Audacity, captures all the absurdities, egos, and jargon of the tech scene as deftly as its predecessors.—
Alexei Oreskovic,
Fortune,
6 Mar. 2026
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In typical 30 Rock fashion, the bit reaches the height of absurdity when someone informs Arthur that some of the tennis balls are meant to be actual tennis balls in the scene.—
Eliana Dockterman,
Time,
5 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The commercial or enterprise ramifications of this folly were low stakes.—
Gideon Lewis-Kraus,
New Yorker,
14 Mar. 2026
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Mostly gone are the staff’s personal foibles and follies, but vanished, too, is the post-COVID-19 despair that hung over the inaugural episodes like an aerosol haze.—
Graham Hillard,
The Washington Examiner,
13 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Any who show up are declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny.—
Gil Kaufman,
Billboard,
24 Feb. 2026
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As to the famous fine line between stupid and clever, the stupidity and the cleverness are all but inextricable, and to the point.—
Television Critic,
Los Angeles Times,
20 Feb. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Bêtise.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/b%C3%AAtise. Accessed 15 Mar. 2026.
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