witlessness

noun

Definition of witlessnessnext
1
as in insanity
lack of good sense or judgment his astounding feats of witlessness are the stuff of family legend

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in obtuseness
the quality or state of lacking intelligence or quickness of mind for sheer witlessness the movie's dialogue deserves some sort of award

Synonyms & Similar Words

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of witlessness No, but the line captures the aristocracy’s witlessness. — Daniel Immerwahr, New Yorker, 18 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for witlessness
  1. insanity
  2. thickness
  3. madness
  4. stupidness
  5. simplicity
  6. stupidity
  7. absurdity
  8. dumbness
Noun
  • The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over.
    — Ryan Ottignon, Washington Post, 31 Oct. 2026
  • Bennett asked the jury to find Hinton not guilty by reason of insanity.
    — Minyvonne Burke, NBC news, 23 Oct. 2026
Definition of insanity
Noun
  • The trunk thickness likely puts these trees well over a century old.
    — Voice of the People, New York Daily News, 13 Nov. 2026
  • Repeating this process thousands of times creates a dense, web-like architecture of intersecting support beams in wildly varying sizes and thicknesses.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 12 Nov. 2026
Definition of thickness
Noun
  • This kind of excision, this near total erasure of the Black voice, can turn one toward madness, certainly toward bitterness.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 11 Nov. 2026
  • From the Kahn Brothers comes a brainy comedy about fathers and sons, science and madness, and second chances.
    — Patrick Hipes, Deadline, 10 Nov. 2026
Definition of madness
Noun
  • In an email to Krebs, Valadon claimed that the repo’s commit logs show that GitHub’s default protections against committing secrets—protections designed to protect unwitting or unskilled developers against exactly this kind of stupidness—had been disabled by the repo’s administrator.
    — Lee Hutchinson, ArsTechnica, 19 May 2026
Definition of stupidness
Noun
  • One can treat it as an indelible feature of human psychology, an unavoidable by-product of our appetite for simplicity and affiliation.
    — Paul Bloom, New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Despite the beery bonhomie and singalong-friendly simplicity of their tunes, the Twisted Teens are grappling with an increasingly complex tangle of contradictions and tensions.
    — Stuart Berman, Pitchfork, 5 Nov. 2026
Definition of simplicity
Noun
  • The power delivery remains impressively smooth, but there is a lot more of it, and the speed builds with the effortless stupidity electric motors are so good at delivering.
    — Kevin Fanady, New Atlas, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Learning that countless more people will lose their lives on account of his neglect, greed, and stupidity, he is pressed, reluctantly, into a most self-serving mode of damage control.
    — Justin Chang, New Yorker, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of stupidity
Noun
  • Firstman excels at highlighting the absurdity of celebrity and the pretension of coastal media types.
    — Matt Donnelly, Variety, 4 Nov. 2026
  • To expose the assumptions, prejudices and absurdities of those interacting with them in the real world — whether on the right or left, in a position of tremendous power or someone off the street.
    — Matt Grobar, Deadline, 2 Nov. 2026
Definition of absurdity
Noun
  • The first 10 minutes are an incredible swirl of paranoia, alcoholism, and sluggish dumbness when Gould just needs to feed his cat.
    — Eric Farwell, Entertainment Weekly, 12 June 2026
  • Unlike its sibling concepts of dumbness and idiocy, stupidity isn’t really a personality trait.
    — Jonny Thomson, Big Think, 11 Feb. 2026
Definition of dumbness

Browse Nearby Words

witless
witlessness
witness
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Cite this Entry

“Witlessness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/witlessness. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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