IRRATIONAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Irrational

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ɪrˈæʃənəl/ Listen

adjective

irrational adj.

Not rational; void of reason or understanding; as, brutes are irrational animals.

Not according to reason; having no rational basis; clearly contrary to reason; easily disproved by reasoning; absurd; of assertions and beliefs. Hence, of actions: Foolish; unreasonable. "It seemed utterly irrational any longer to maintain it."

(Math.) Not capable of being exactly expressed by an integral number, nor by a ratio of integral numbers; surd; said especially of roots. See Surd.

Synonyms: Absurd; foolish; preposterous; unreasonable; senseless. See Absurd.

See images of 'Irrational'

Etymology of 'Irrational'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Irrational" Quotes from Famous Books

... regularly; she had even sent him provision baskets. To herself she questioned whether the end he was striving for might not be reached by smoother roads; but if any one else suggested that he was doing an irrational thing, she flew up in arms. And now as he came into the dining-room his "Hello, Nina!" was much as a brother's might have been, and ...

— The Title Market • Emily Post

... The world will furnish him with countless opportunities both of great joy and bitter grief, so the readings of the temperament-chart of the artist will be apt to resemble the variations of a barometer when changeable weather is about. Genius is thus as a rule variable to the verge of the irrational. ...

— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt

... strong views stated:—It was thrown out that it was a case for amicable settlement, but the respondent's counsel assured the Court that his client 'had resolved to spend his fortune, if necessary, in resisting the claim of the Rev. Dr. O'Fay.' Lord Justice Blackburne pronounced this to be a very irrational determination, although he had to decide that the claim could not be sustained in law ...

— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... beauty, fill us Davids with irrational awe; but, the next moment, they are treated like small children by the very first matron they meet; they resign their judgment at once to hers, and bow their wills to her lightest word with ...

— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... have persisted, with so much pains, to come to this unbounded catacomb, seems now singular to me: for by that time I could not have been sufficiently daft to expect to find another being like myself on the earth, though I cherished, I remember, the irrational hope of yet somewhere finding dog, or cat, or horse, to be with me, and would anon think bitterly of Reinhardt, my Arctic dog, which my own hand had shot. But, in reality, a morbid curiosity must have ...

— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

More quotes...