incongruous

CEFRC1

/ɪnˈkɒn.ɡɹʊu.ʌs/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Not matching or fitting well with other things.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Of two numbers, with respect to a third, such that their difference can not be divided by it without a remainder.

Examples

He has an incongruous sounding name which is hard to remember.
When people use the word "ironic", they may mean "comically incongruous".

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 3
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5

Also pronounced

/ɪnˈkɒŋ.ɹʊu.ʌs/
/ɪŋˈkɑŋ.ɡɹu.əs/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meaning

Not similar or congruent; not matching or fitting in.

More examples

In context

20 and 25 are incongruous with respect to 4.
[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.
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.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The modern glass building looked blank among the old brick houses of the neighborhood.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

[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.
1853 January, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 34, in Villette. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC
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.
1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter I, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC
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.
1912, Jack London, chapter 1, in A Son Of The Sun
A slightly incongruous note is struck by the National Westminster Bank beside the Vine [pub], a tiny dolls' house of a building, about the size of a garden shed, in herringbone-patterned brick.
1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 202, about Goudhurst, Kent
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.
2014 November 18, Daniel Taylor, “England and Wayne Rooney see off Scotland in their own back yard”, in The Guardian

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Origin

adjective

From Latin incongruus, from in- (“not”) + congruus (“congruent”), equivalent to in- + congruous.

Deep Dive

adjective

More examples

Quick test

The modern glass building looked blank— among the old brick houses of the neighborhood.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

The modern glass building looked blank among the old brick houses of the neighborhood.